Opinion ID: 1532443
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: First State Constitutions

Text: The Declaration of Independence was the catalyst that elevated the separation of powers doctrine into what is now known as a first principle of free government. [21] The Declaration of Independence expressed the concerns that required dissolv[ing] the political bands with England. Those concerns included interference with the judicial process by the King and Parliament, by: obstructing the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers; making Judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries; and depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury. Independence from England meant that each of the former colonial states became a new sovereign entity. In 1776, that status required each colonial state to draft its own constitution. The framers of the first state constitutions had lived under a system of intermingled legislative and judicial powers. In the 17th and 18th centuries colonial legislatures in America functioned as courts of equity of last resort, by either hearing original actions or providing appellate review of judicial judgments. [22] Often, however, those hybrid legislative and judicial assemblies decided to inject themselves into the judicial process by enacting special bills. It was common for such legislation to nullify the judicial judgment in a particular case. [23] The first state constitutions reflect the desirability of separating the legislative from the judicial power, prompted by royal and legislative interference with judgments of the American colonial courts. Notably, Delaware's 1776 Constitution [24] and all of the other first state constitutions, provided for the same three departments. Six of those constitutions contained a general clause expressly allocating the powers of government among these three branches  the legislative, executive, and judicial. Although the specific provisions varied, the legal result reflected in each of the first state constitutions was the same: to define the sovereign power with precision and to restrain its exercise within marked boundaries. [25] From 1776 until 1787, the doctrine of separation of powers was expanded and exalted to the foremost position in the American framework of constitutionalism. By the 1780's many believed that the principle of separation of powers was the basis of all free governments, the most important attribute of the kind of government for which they had fought the American Revolutionary War. [26] According to Thomas Jefferson, the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others. [27] In a September 28, 1787 letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote: The first principle of a good government is certainly a distribution of its powers into executive, judiciary, and legislative and a subdivision of the latter into two or three branches. [28]