The Constitutionalism of American States 1st Edition by George E Connor, Christopher W Hammons ISBN 0826266053 9780826266057

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ISBN 10: 0826266053

ISBN 13: 9780826266057 

Author: George E. Connor, Christopher W. Hammons

This comparative study of American state constitutions offers insightful overviews of the general and specific problems that have confronted America’s constitution writers since the founding. Each chapter reflects the constitutional history and theory of a single state, encompassing each document’s structure, content, and evolution.

            The text is grounded in the model presented by constitutional scholar Donald S. Lutz in The Origins of American Constitutionalism so that even when a state has a relatively stable constitutional history, Lutz’s framework can be used to measure the evolving meaning of the document. With contributors drawn from state governments as well as academia, this is the first work to offer a framework by which state constitutions can be analyzed in relation to one another and to the federal Constitution.

The volume begins with chapters on the New England, Mid-Atlantic, Border, and Southern states. While regional similarities within and between the New England and Mid-Atlantic states are noteworthy, the colonial aspect of their history laid the foundation for national constitution-making. And while North and South moved in distinct directions, the Border states wrestled with conflicting constitutional traditions in the same way that they wrestled with their place in the Union.

            Southern states that seceded are shown to have had a common set of problems in their constitutions, and the post–Civil War South emerged from that conflict with a constitutionalism that was defined for it by the war’s victors. These chapters reveal that constitutional self-definition, while not evident in all of the former Confederate states, has redeveloped in the South in the intervening 140 years.

            Sections devoted to the Midwest, the Plains, the Mountain West, the Southwest, and the West reflect the special circumstances of states that arose from American expansion. Chapters describe how states of the Midwest, united by common roots in the Northwest Ordinance, wrote constitutions that were defined by that act’s parameters while reflecting the unique cultural and political realities of each state. Meanwhile, the Plains states developed a constitutionalism that was historically rooted in progressivism and populism, sometimes in the clash between these two ideologies.

Perhaps more than any other region, the Mountain West was defined by the physical landscape, and these chapters relate how those states were able to define their individual constitutional identities in spite of geography rather than because of it. And although western states borrowed heavily from those with much older constitutional traditions, the contributors reveal that they borrowed differently—and in different proportions—in order to craft constitutions that were uniquely adapted to their historical situation and peoples.

            This work demonstrates the diversity of our governmental arrangements and provides a virtual introduction to the political culture of each—many offering stories of constitutional foundings that are rich with meaning. Although these fifty documents are defined in a federal context, state constitutions are necessary to complete the constitutionalism of the United States. 

Table of contents:

New England States

1. The Slow Evolution of the “Constitution State”
2. The Maine Constitution: A Tradition of Consensus
3. The Massachusetts Constitution: Liberty and Equality in the Commonwealth
4. New Hampshire and the Constitutional Movement
5. Constitutionalism in Rhode Island: Continuity of Colonial Design
6. The Green Mountain Boys Constitute Vermont

Mid-Atlantic States
7. Pioneer and Outlier: Maryland Constitutionalism in Its Third Century
8. Constitutionalism in New Jersey: Constitutional Failures in a Changing Political Environment
9. The New York Constitution: Emerging Principles in American Constitutional Thought
10. Pennsylvania: Virtue, Liberty, and Independence

Border States
11. Festina Lente: The Development of Constitutionalism in Delaware
12. Constitutionalism in Kentucky: Adapting an Archaic Charter
13. Missouri Constitutionalism: Meandering toward Progress, 1820-2004
14. The West Virginia Constitution: Securing the Popular Interest

Southern States
15. Political Geography and Power Elites: Big Mules and the Alabama Constitution
16. Change and Continuity in Arkansas Politics after the 1874 Arkansas State Constitutional Convention
17. Florida: Defining and Redefining Citizen and Community
18. Georgia: Tectonic Plates Shifting
19. The Louisiana Experience: Culture, Clashes, and Codification
20. Custom, Culture, and Change: The Mississippi Constitutional Experience
21. North Carolina: Fundamental Principles
22. South Carolina: Defining Power, Defining People
23. The Tennessee Constitution: An Unlikely Path toward Conservatism
24. The Texas Constitution: Formal and Informal
25. The Development of the Virginia Constitution

Midwestern States
26. Understatement and the Development of Illinois Constitutionalism
27. Justice, Order, and Liberty: Responsible Citizenship in Indiana
28. Michigan: Four Constitutions, Four New Beginnings
29. The Ohio Constitution: Normatively and Empirically Distinctive
30. Wisconsin: Rejection, Ratification, and the Evolution of a People

The Plains States
31. The Iowa Constitution: Rights over Mechanics
32. The Kansas Constitution: Conservative Politics through Republican Dominance
33. Framing Government for a Frontier Commonwealth: The Minnesota Constitution(s)
34. A Self-Righteous and Self-Sufficient Method for Governing: How the Nebraska Constitution Preserves a Way of Life
35. North Dakota: A Constitution Implements Popular Democracy
36. Oklahoma’s Statutory Constitution
37. South Dakota’s Constitution: Harkening Backward, Foreshadowing a Future

Mountain West States
38. Two Sides of Colorado, Amplified through Constitutional Redesign
39. The Constitutional Idahoan
40. Montana: Community Denied, Constitutionalism Delayed
41. The Nevada State Constitution: From Polygamy to Prostitution
42. Utah’s Constitution: Distinctly Undistinctive
43. Wyoming: The Equality State

Western States
44. The Alaska Constitution: Promoting Statehood, Providing Stability
45. Arizona’s Constitution: The Madisonian Hope of a Western Progressive State
46. The 1849 California Constitution: An Extraordinary Achievement by Dedicated, Ordinary People
47. Hawaii: Centralization in a Multi-island State
48. New Mexico’s Constitution: Promoting Pluralism in La Tierra Encantada
49. Oregon’s Constitution: A Political Richter Scale
50. Washington: The Past and Present Populist State

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Tags: George E Connor, Christopher W Hammons, Constitutionalism, American States