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Basic Materials for the Study of State Constitutions and State Constitutional Development*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 September 2013
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- Bibliographical Article
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- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1954
References
1 Bryce, James, The American Commonwealth, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (London and New York, 1891), Vol. 1, p. 399Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., p. 434.
3 Holcombe, Arthur N., State Government in the United States, 3rd ed. (New York, 1931), p. 450Google Scholar.
4 Rossiter, Clinton, Seedtime of the Republic (New York, 1953), p. 448Google Scholar. See also the Introduction by Friedrich, Carl J. and McCloskey, Robert G., eds., From the Declaration of Independence to the Constitution (New York, 1954)Google Scholar.
5 Hartz, Louis, “American Political Thought and the American Revolution”, this Review, Vol. 46, pp. 321–43 (June, 1952)Google Scholar.
6 These struggles are described in Nevins, Allan, The American States during and after the Revolution (New York, 1924)Google Scholar.
7 Seedtime of the Republic, p. 428.
8 The Book of the States, 1941–1942 (The Council of State Governments, Chicago, 1941), p. 45Google Scholar, and table of constitutional conventions, by states, pp. 48–55. Less than one-third of the states have had only one convention; see The Book of the States., 1954–1955 (Chicago, 1954), pp. 68–73Google Scholar.
9 For the skillful use and blending of these materials in tracing a particular development in one state, see Hartz, Louis, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought: Pennsylvania, 1776–1860 (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Some of the published materials mentioned were unavailable for inspection by the author. Information concerning these was obtained from Library of Congress cards.
11 An examination of the publication dates of state constitutions indicates that Arkansas, California, Ohio, and Washington lead other states in the frequency of publication since 1930. The length of many state constitutions makes publication rather expensive. For example, sixteen states have constitutions that contain more than 20,000 words. For this estimate, see table prepared by Graves, W. Brooke, in The Book of the States, 1954–1955, pp. 68–73Google Scholar. State constitutions are usually published by the office of the secretary of state. See State Constitutions: A Bibliography (Bureau of the Census, Governments Division, Washington, June, 1944)Google Scholar, with Supplement (1947).
12 Space does not permit a listing of the statutory codes of the states, which may be found, of course, in university law libraries. A useful listing, as of 1948, is “Schedule of Latest Editions of Federal, State and Territorial Statutory Compilations with Supplements …,” compiled by Minnie Wiener (Federal Works Agency, 1948). A cursory examination of these codes reveals that some twenty-two have been published within the past ten years. In addition, twenty codes have had supplements added since 1950. Leading publishers of state codea are the Michie Co., Charlottesville, Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, and West Publishing Co., St. Paul. All but four states, it appears, have had annotated constitutions published as part of their codes.
13 In Texas, for example, these manuals are published biennially to correspond with the regular legislative sessions.
14 For other sources concerned with state publications, see Brown, Everett S., Manual of Government Publications (Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1950), pp. 45–58Google Scholar.
15 Constitutional provisions for amending each of the forty-eight state constitutions are reproduced in Larsen, Christian L. and Cowan, Conrad, South Carolina State Constitution Amendment Procedures (Bureau of Public Administration, University of South Carolina, Columbia, 1948), pp. 19–58Google Scholar. See also Dealey, James Q., Growth of American State Constitutions (Ginn and Co., Boston, 1915)Google Scholar.
16 See the table on “State Constitutions and Constitutional Conventions”, prepared by Graves, W. Brooke, in The Book of the States, 1954–1955, pp. 68–73Google Scholar.
17 Because of the difficulty of the procedure, no amendments to the Tennessee Constitution of 1870 were adopted until November, 1953. National Municipal Review, Vol. 42, p. 562 (Dec., 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 One of the most helpful aids in tracing state constitutional changes was the State Law Index (Government Printing Office, Washington)Google Scholar, a biennial publication (12 editions) prepared by the Legislative Reference Service of the Library of Congress, which was published until 1948. In this publication the proposed, ratified, and rejected amendments to state constitutions were indexed for each biennium. From 1929 to 1937, inclusive, and in 1940 this Review carried an annual article on “State Constitutional Development.” Sometimes bureaus of public administration or similar agencies of state universities publish pamphlets summarizing and discussing proposed constitutional amendments in a state. An example is Florida's Proposed Constitutional Amendments—1954 by Larsen, William F. (Civic Information Series, No. 19, Public Administration Clearing House, University of Florida, Gainesville, 1954)Google Scholar. A detailed analysis of state proposals, both constitutional and statutory, voted on in 1946 may be found in State Proposals Voted upon in 1946, by Spencer, Richard C. and Meck, Anna A. (Bureau of the Census, Governments Division, Washington, May, 1947)Google Scholar.
19 In 1912, the Legislative Reference Department of the Ohio State Library published a Digest of State Constitutions (F. J. Heer Co., Columbus, 1912), edited by Newman, J. H.Google Scholar, for the use of the Ohio Constitutional Convention of that year. Because of the arrangement of materials and its brevity, this digest is not as useful as the one mentioned in the text.
20 One earlier comparative study is Dealey, James Q., Our State Constitutions, Supplement to the Annals (American Academy of Political and Social Science, Philadelphia, 1907)Google Scholar.
21 See also Dodd, Walter F., The Revision and Amendment of State Constitutions (Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1910)Google Scholar. The several methods of constitutional revision are described in Keith, John P., Methods of Constitutional Revision (Bureau of Municipal Research, University of Texas, Austin, 1949)Google Scholar. Appendices B through E list recent joint legislative constitutional committees, unofficial constitutional committees, constitutional commissions, and constitutional conventions in the states. There is a tendency toward greater use of the constitutional commission in the initial phase of constitutional revision. The development of the American procedure for framing constitutions is traced by Dodd, W. F., “The First State Constitutional Conventions, 1776–1783”, this Review, Vol. 2, pp. 545–61 (Nov., 1908)Google Scholar.
22 The journals record the motions, votes, resolutions, reports of committees, and other actions of the convention. Many of them also give brief biographical sketches of the delegates. In a few instances the journal also includes the debates.
23 Several states have used an appointive commission to study and recommend changes in the state constitution and to report to the governor or the legislature or an elected convention. See, for example, Report of the Commission on Constitutional Amendment and Revision (Harrisburg, 1920)Google Scholar, a report made to the Pennsylvania General Assembly.
24 Report of the New York State Constitutional Convention Committee, 12 vols. (J. B. Lyon Co., Albany, 1938)Google Scholar.
25 A series of eight Manuals (Columbia, 1943) prepared for the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1943Google Scholar.
26 A series of mimeographed “monographs” (Trenton, 1947) prepared by individual authors under the general coordination of the Governor's Committee on Preparatory Research for the New Jersey Constitutional Convention of 1947.
27 Constitutional Problems, prepared by the Central Research Staff, Constitution Revision Project, Louisiana Law Institute (1947–1948)Google Scholar. This is a series of mimeographed bulletins (sixty-three numbers, some with separate parts) covering the major problems which a convention would face in Louisiana. The Oklahoma Legislative Council prepared a series of constitutional studies (21 bulletins) in 1948.
* It is believed that this convenient listing of the published debates, by states and dates, will serve as a guide to those who may be interested in the informative and voluminous records of state constitutional conventions. These debates are available for thirty-nine states and for one or more constitutional conventions in each decade since 1810.
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