We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution

by Jill Lepore

State constitutional conventions democratized state constitutions, including by eliminating property requirements for voting, even as the white, male delegates who met at those conventions introduced the words white and male into their constitutions, excluding everyone but themselves from the full practice of citizenship. These were the wages of majoritarianism. In response, the people excluded from those meetings, defying the tyranny of the majority, held their own conventions, in which they drafted, ratified, and amended constitutions and statements of purpose, organized petition campaigns, and proposed amendments to the federal and state constitutions. Denied the right to participate in the formal process of drafting and amending state constitutions, they held their own deliberations, promulgated their own interpretation of constitutional clauses, and devised their own philosophy of amendment.