When the various American states became independent, the legislatures were freed of the tyranny of the Crown appointed governors. Despite the high-sounding "civic virtue" that Thomas Jefferson and many of his colleagues thought would come about, special interests often dominated state legislatures, often unicameral legislatures. If those interests were represented by the majority, those interests would take precedence over the rights of others. Jefferson wrote, "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for."
Source: "The American Revolution", Gordon S. Woods
"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
- Edmund Burke
