There were other classes prohibited from holding office,--immoral men and sabbath breakers, for instance, and clergymen, doctors, and lawyers.

The exclusion of lawyers from law-making bodies was one of the darling plans of the ordinary sincere rural demagogue of the day.

At that time lawyers, as a class, furnished the most prominent and influential political leaders; and they were, on the whole, the men of most mark in the communities.

A narrow, uneducated, honest countryman, especially in the backwoods, then looked upon a lawyer, usually with smothered envy and admiration, but always with jealousy, suspicion, and dislike; much as his successors to this day look upon bankers and railroad men.

It seemed to him a praiseworthy thing to prevent any man whose business it was to study the law from having a share in making the law.
The proposed constitution showed the extreme suspicion felt by the common people for even their own elected lawmakers.