The Constitution, however, in spite of the opposition, was overwhelmingly ratified. The vote for it was 74,732; against it 41,043. And it proved better than even its sponsors prophesied. It abolished the Councils of Appointment and of Revision; it abolished the power of the governor to prorogue the Legislature; it abolished the property qualification of the white voter; it extended the elective franchise; it made a large number of officers elective; it modified the management of the canals and created a canal board; it continued the Court of Errors and Impeachments; it reorganised the judicial department, making all judges, surrogates, and recorders appointive by the governor, with the advice and consent of the Senate; it made state officers, formerly appointed by the Council, elective by joint ballot of the Senate and Assembly; and it gave the power of veto exclusively to the governor, requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to overcome it. No doubt it had radical defects, but with the help of a few amendments it lived for a quarter of a century. CHAPTER XXVIII THE SECOND FALL OF CLINTON 1822 The new Constitution changed the date of elections from April to November, and reduced the gubernatorial term from three years to two, thus ending Governor Clinton's administration on January 1, 1823. As the time approached for nominating his successor, it was obvious that the Bucktails, having reduced party discipline to a science and launched the Albany Regency upon its long career of party domination, were certain to control the election. Indeed, so strong had the party become that a nomination for senator or assemblyman was equivalent to an election, and the defeat of John W. Taylor of Saratoga for speaker of the Seventeenth Congress showed that its power extended to the capital of the nation. Taylor's ability and splendid leadership, in the historic contest of the Missouri Compromise, had made him speaker during the second session of the Sixteenth Congress; but Bucktail resentment of his friendly attitude toward Clinton, in 1820, changed a sufficient number of his New York colleagues to deprive him of re-election. It was not until the Nineteenth Congress, after the power of the Albany Regency had been temporarily broken by the election of John Quincy Adams to the Presidency, that Taylor finally received the reward to which he was so richly entitled.