In Virginia at the constitutional convention in 1829-30, local government was the subject of an acrimonious discussion, with the Jeffersonian influences seeking to break down the established power of the self-perpetuating justices, who were charged with inefficiency, and establish in their place the New England town system. But Madison and Marshall, who were both members of the convention, successfully upheld the existing order. By the middle of the century both Virginia and Kentucky succumbed to the democratic influence and there was a complete reaction from the appointive system. New York extended the elective idea to district attorneys and county judges, and Massachusetts and New Hampshire in due time made similar alterations. In the states west of the Mississippi the tendency to put all the county officers in the elective class was assumed from the start to be the only method of insuring popular control. “The rule of the people” at last captured the whole country, except Rhode Island, where even the sheriff is still appointive.[2] The movement was at its height during the long period of democratic control from Jackson to Buchanan, and it had behind it the powerfully stimulating spirit of the new West. It was the conception of practical, direct, but superficial thinkers and politicians. To be sure, the particular appointive system in use in New York and other eastern states under the earlier constitutions had behaved badly. The Jacksonians leaped headlong at the conclusion that the trouble lay in the idea of appointment _per se_. Other alternatives they did not for a moment consider, but with an air of supreme finality declared that “the people must rule”--by electing as many officials as could be crowded on the ballot. The fact also that the county possessed no satisfactory appointing power left no other course but to let the people undertake the intricate work of an executive. So that through the passing of the years that single course has materially multiplied the number of elective officers--the people themselves, enamored with the dogma that “the cure for democracy is more democracy” looked on complacently while complication has been heaped upon complication.