amendments now go to the people for a vote in every state except
Delaware. The significance of this fact, and the resemblance of this
vote to the Swiss Referendum, are seen when one considers the subject
matter of a state constitution. Nowadays, such a constitution usually
limits a legislature to a short biennial session and defines in detail
what laws the legislature may and may not pass. In fact, then, in
adopting a constitution once in ten or twenty years, the voters of a
state decide upon admissible legislation. Thus they themselves are the
real legislators. Among the matters once left entirely to legislatures,
but now commonly dealt with in constitutions, are the following:
Prohibiting or regulating the liquor traffic; prohibiting or chartering
lotteries; determining tax rates; founding and locating state schools
and other state institutions; establishing a legal rate of interest;
fixing the salaries of public officials; drawing up railroad and other
corporation regulations; and defining the relations of husbands and
wives, and of debtors and creditors. In line with all this is a
tendency to easy amendment. In nearly all the new states and in those
older ones which have recently revised their constitutions, the time in
which amendments may be effected is as a rule but half of that formerly
required. Where once the approval of two successive legislatures was
exacted, now the consent of one is considered sufficient.

In fifteen states, until submitted to a popular vote, no law changing
the location of the capital is valid; in seven, no laws establishing
banking corporations; in eleven, no laws for the incurrence of debts
excepting such as are specified in the constitution, and no excess of
"casual deficits" beyond a stipulated sum; in several, no rate of
assessment exceeding a figure proportionate to the aggregate valuation
of the taxable property. Without the Referendum, Illinois cannot sell
its state canal; Minnesota cannot pay interest or principal of the