The term used to describe colonist who wrote state constitutions that retained property requirements?

Question

is this radical revolutionaries or cautious revolutionaries?

Answer 1

Property qualifications for voting were an everyday part of

all British-style voting systems, since the Magna Carta.

(about 1200 AD)  No one had to specifically include them in state constitutions - They were already assumed.

The degree of property qualification remained an issue.  Since Thomas Jefferson was the wealthiest founding father, it was probably he who set the bar so high.

REMOVING property qualifications - That was what was revolutionary in the American concept of democracy.

Answer 2

There was no one answer at the time to the question you pose.  However, given the choice between the two, cautious revolutionaries is more appropriate in that property requirements maintained the status quo.  The first answer is wrong in that it assumes no property qualifications needed to be listed.  While assumed that there would be a qualification, such issues were included as part of these early constitutions for purposes of describing the electorate of each state.  Pennsylvania was by far the most "radical" of early states in extending suffrage, and the state Constitution of 1776 was much more generally democratic than the other states, both extending the voting right and in its structure.

The earlier answer is also wrong to cite Jefferson as the source of maintaining the status quo, and attributing this to his wealth.  He was somewhere in the middle of the Founders as far as wealth goes.  At the time of Independence (1776, after which each state adopted a Constitution in short order) Robert Morris was likely the wealthiest of the elite group.  Unfortunately, as time went on Western Speculation bankrupted him.  Washington was also extremely wealthy, having married the wealthiest widow in Virginia and controlling vast lands.  John Hancock also deserves inclusion for his wealth, as his shipping empire enabled him to bankroll early revolutionary efforts (as Morris and Washington did at later times, both for Congress and the Continental Army).

Jefferson, as it turns out, actually worked against the status quo regarding property rights.  After leaving Congress in 1776 to return to the House of Burgesses, he undertook a series of reforms, including altering property requirements for voting.  He also worked against primogeniture, a system by which the eldest was favored in inheritence.  While his efforts achieved mixed results, if lined up amongst the Founders, he would have been left of center as far as the political spectrum goes and definitely more radical than some of his contemporaries.

I would call the drafters of these early state constitutions "conservatives," although they were a mixed bag.  The "radicals" supported the revolution, the "conservatives" generally opposed it, but large numbers were left somewhere in between.  So, the conservatism amongst the radicals favored Independence but wrote provisions into the new state constitutions that essentially ratified the existing structure of colonial government, save for their exlusion of British authority.