American State Constitutions: An Historical Series

National Bureau Of Economic Research Inc, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Since 1776, American states have written over 150 constitutions and amended them over 10,000 times. States have experimented with a wide variety constitutional arrangements governing suffrage, representation, legislative structures, judicial structures, corporate law, and public finance. The constitutions themselves record fundamental institutional change in American history, a record reflecting changes in the way Americans think about their governments and the changing political constraints on the American society and economy. Because constitutions have changed so much over time, they provide a fascinating laboratory for social scientists. But because they have changed so often, an enormous written record has accumulated: the complete constitutional texts and their amendments would fill up 15,000 printed pages. Since 1997, we have been assembling the texts of the state constitutions and their amendments, correcting the errors and omissions of earlier editors, and bringing the complete series up to 2000. To date, the complete texts of constitutions for twenty states are available on our web site, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/constitution, and we will have a complete set by early 2006. One drawback of printed volumes is the difficulty in sorting through the voluminous mass of text. The constitutions on the web site can be searched by state, year, article and section number, and by keyword. This enables readers to immediately access those parts of the constitutions they wish to examine. The web site is designed around a data base search engine. This allows us to associate amended text with the article and section it amends, making it much easier to track constitutional changes through time. Creating sustainable governments that respect the rights of individual citizens and provide a stable environment for economic growth is a fundamental challenge in the modern world. The European Union is currently struggling to write a workable constitution, as are the transition economies of Eastern Europe and Asia. The United States not only has the oldest written constitution continuously in force (the Massachusetts constitution of 1780), but it has the widest and richest constitutional history of any nation in the world. Until now, however, much of that experience has been locked away in inaccessible volumes, volumes literally too heavy to carry. This rich history has had relatively little impact on how social scientists understand how institutions evolve. Our project opens this tremendous national resource for everyone.