American State Constitutions: A Historical Series and Database

National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Since 1776, American states have continually amended and revised their constitutions. States have experimented with a wide variety of suffrage, representation, legislative structures, judicial structures, corporate law, and public finance. The constitutions themselves are a record of fundamental institutional change in American history. It is a record that not only reflects changes in the way Americans think about their governments, but a record of the changing institutional constraints on the American economy. Since 1997 we have been assembling the texts of the state constitutions and their amendments. Most of the texts are now available on our web site: www.bsos.umd.edu/wallis/constitution.asp. The constitutions will ultimately be indexed by article and section. The index will include thirty main divisions and roughly a thousand topics. The database containing the constitutions can be searched by date, state, and topic. Text can be downloaded in the form of constitutions, articles, and sections. The proposed research will allow us to complete the coding and indexing of the constitutions; complete the collection and integration of constitutional amendments into the data base; and construct a series of data sets measuring attributes of constitutions. These data sets cover a range of topics. They will be in the form of spreadsheets with detailed breakdowns by state and year for each entry. The data sets will also be available through the web site.