Pennsylvania’s 1776 constitution invented the elective constitutional-amendment mechanism.

Evidence

The most innovative governmental check in the constitution came from a provision for an elected Council of Censors to meet each seventh year and review whether all laws and executive actions complied with the terms of the Declaration of Rights and Frame of Government. It could censure acts, order impeachments, and recommend the repeal of laws. This council could also propose such constitutional amendments “as are necessary for the preservation of the rights and happiness of the people” and call conventions to ratify them. Voters would elect delegates to these conventions after having at least six months to review the proposed amendments and “an opportunity of instructing their delegates on the subject.” No prior state constitution included a means for its own amendment. By providing one, the Provincial Convention responded to the published comment that if legislators can amend the constitution, then “they may mould it into what shape they please; and in the end make us slaves by law.” Rather, this commentator declared, the “only safe repository” of the power to make and amend constitutions is in “the hands of THE PEOPLE.” — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 282

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to course material on constitutional entrenchment, amendment and the popular-sovereignty versus legislative supremacy debate echoing Federalist-era arguments and Jefferson’s generational amendment idea.
• QUESTION: Where did the elective Council of Censors idea originate, and does it prefigure any modern state mechanisms like recall or initiative?