There were other classes prohibited from holding
office,--immoral men and sabbath breakers, for instance, and clergymen,
doctors, and lawyers. The exclusion of lawyers from law-making bodies
was one of the darling plans of the ordinary sincere rural demagogue of
the day. At that time lawyers, as a class, furnished the most prominent
and influential political leaders; and they were, on the whole, the men
of most mark in the communities. A narrow, uneducated, honest
countryman, especially in the backwoods, then looked upon a lawyer,
usually with smothered envy and admiration, but always with jealousy,
suspicion, and dislike; much as his successors to this day look upon
bankers and railroad men. It seemed to him a praiseworthy thing to
prevent any man whose business it was to study the law from having a
share in making the law.
The proposed constitution showed the extreme suspicion felt by the
common people for even their own elected lawmakers. It made various
futile provisions to restrain them, such as providing that "except on
occasions of sudden necessity," laws should only become such after being
enacted by two successive Legislatures, and that a Council of Safety
should be elected to look after the conduct of all the other public
officials.
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