With the progress of this movement to restore the system of checks in the state constitutions the governor regained his independence of the legislature and also many of the rights and prerogatives of which the Revolution had deprived him. He was made coordinate with the legislature, set over against it and generally clothed with the qualified veto power, which made him for all practical purposes the third house of that body. Georgia increased the governor's term of office to two years and gave him the qualified veto power in 1798. Pennsylvania made his term of office three years and gave him the veto power in 1790. New Hampshire conferred the veto power on him in 1792 and New York in 1821.
This tendency to make the public official less directly dependent upon the people or their immediate representatives is clearly seen in other important changes made in the state constitutions during this period. Popular control over the legislature was diminished by lengthening the terms of the members of both houses and by providing that the upper house should be elected for a longer term than the lower. Georgia established an upper house in 1789 and made the term of office of its members three years. In 1790 Pennsylvania also added a senate whose members were to be elected for four years, and South Carolina increased the term of its senators from one to four years. Delaware extended the term from one to two years for members of the lower house and from three to four years for members of the upper house and made the legislative sessions biennial instead of annual in 1831. North Carolina increased the term of members of both houses from one to two years and adopted biennial sessions in 1835. Maryland in 1837 extended the term of senators from five to six years, and in 1846 established biennial sessions of the legislature. The responsibility of the legislature was still further diminished by the gradual adoption of the plan of partial renewal of the senate, which was incorporated in the Revolutionary constitutions of Delaware, New York and Virginia and later copied in the Federal Constitution. This ensured the conservative and steadying influence exerted by a body of hold-over members in the upper house.