The power which the legislatures thus acquired to grant charters which could not be amended or repealed made it necessary for the people to devise some new method of protecting themselves against this abuse of legislative authority. The outcome of this movement to re-establish some effective popular check on the legislature has taken the form in a majority of the states of a constitutional amendment by which the right is reserved to amend or repeal all laws conferring corporate powers. Such constitutional changes provide no remedy, however, for the evils resulting from legislative grants made previous to their adoption. The granting of special charters is now also prohibited in many states, the constitution requiring that all corporations shall be formed under general laws. These constitutional changes may be regarded as in the interest of the capitalist class as a whole, whose demand was for a broader and more liberal policy--one which would extend the advantages of the corporate form of organization to all capitalists in every line of business. But even our general corporation laws have been enacted too largely in the interest of those who control our business undertakings and without due regard to the rights of the general public. A study of our political history shows that the attitude of the courts has been responsible for much of our political immorality. By protecting the capitalist in the possession and enjoyment of privileges unwisely and even corruptly granted, they have greatly strengthened the motive for employing bribery and other corrupt means in securing the grant of special privileges. If the courts had all along held that any proof of fraud or corruption in obtaining a franchise or other legislative grant was sufficient to justify its revocation, the lobbyist, the bribe-giver, and the "innocent purchaser" of rights and privileges stolen from the people, would have found the traffic in legislative favors a precarious and much less profitable mode of acquiring wealth. CHAPTER XIII THE INFLUENCE OF DEMOCRACY UPON THE CONSTITUTION The distinguishing feature of the Constitution, as shown in the preceding chapters of this book, was the elaborate provisions which it contained for limiting the power of the majority. The direction of its development, however, has in many respects been quite different from that for which the more conservative of its framers hoped.[188] The checks upon democracy which it contained were nevertheless so skilfully contrived and so effective that the progress of the popular movement has been more seriously hampered and retarded here than in any other country where the belief in majority rule has come to be widely accepted. In some important respects the system as originally set up has yielded to the pressure of present-day tendencies in political thought; but many of its features are at variance with what has come to be regarded as essential in any well-organized democracy.