When such men drifted into a local legislature, they naturally escaped as soon as they could to some larger and less obstructed field of action.

If the American people want better legislatures, they must adopt one of two courses.

Either they must give their legislative bodies something more and better to do, or else they must arrange so that these bodies will have a chance to perform an inferior but definite service more capably.
The legislatures have been corrupt and incapable, chiefly because they have not been permitted any sufficient responsibility, but this irresponsibility itself has had more than one cause.

It cannot be traced exclusively to the diminished confidence and power reposed in representative bodies by the state constitutions.

Early in the nineteenth century, the legislatures were granted almost full legislative powers; and if they did not use those powers well, they used them much better than at a later period.