b. Pennsylvania
In the blueprints for most of the new governments, executive officers (governors) held much less power than their colonial predecessors, and in Georgia and Pennsylvania, the office was abolished altogether. Those two states also eliminated the more aristocratical upper chamber of the legislative branch, but most constitutions provided for bicameral (two-chambered) legislatures, which wielded unprecedented authority and were designed to be responsive to electoral pressures.
More significantly, most new state documents brought and participation in public life, by creating more elective offices, mandating more frequent elections, and reducing - but not eliminating - the property requirements for voting or holding office. In many states, close to half of the adult white males became eligible to vote. Here, too, Pennsylvania’s 1776 constitution was the most radical, granting suffrage to all taxpaying men (including free blacks who qualified as taxpayers). In most states, the fact that only men could vote went without saying, though three states saw fit to make the condition explicit. New Jersey’s state constitution, however, open the door for unmarried women to vote, though that door would be slam shut early in the next century. Despite such anomalies, the basic character of American politics in the early republics was established during this era.