Saturday, September 6, 2014

Please name one unique feature of the US Constitution and one unique feature of the Georgia Constitution.

One feature of the Georgia Constitution is that it was voted on and had to be approved of by two thirds of the voters. This is quite different from the US Constitution, which was almost entirely approved by special state conventions, not the public.
Most of the US public at that time could not vote on the Constitution. Women were barred from voting. So were not just Black slaves, but also free Blacks—except in New York and New England. American Indians were also barred from voting and would not gain citizenship until 1923 and the vote until the 1950s and 60s. Jews and atheists were barred from voting in a few states as well.
Finally, most white males could not vote either. One had to be a property owner. The amount one had to own varied by state. It was very high in southern slave states, where slave owners were most of the voters. It was far lower in New England states, but still, most white males there could not vote.
Georgia's most recent constitution was voted on by the general public after it was first approved by two thirds of each house of the Georgia legislature. The US Constitution was only voted on in Rhode Island (again, only by white male property owners.) There, it was defeated by a huge margin, 10-1 against it. This is part of the historical evidence that most of the American public did not want the Constitution, and it was imposed over their objections by the special conventions.


One unique feature of the US Constitution is that the main body of the original constitution is still in effect; it has been modified by amendments. In contrast, the Georgia Constitution has been substantially rewritten numerous times. Several of these complete overhauls have been done since the end of the Civil War. A difference in the 1789 version, which followed the US Constitution, was that it included the Bill of Rights in Article I, while in the federal document, the Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments. The current Georgia Constitution, the first totally new rendition since 1877, went into effect in 1983. This version also uniquely prohibits the inclusion of further constitutional amendments that would relate exclusively to any intrastate political subdivision.

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