U.S. State Constitutions Network

A new network bringing together projects and individuals studying U.S. state constitutions

Since 1776 America has been governed by two national constitutional frameworks—The Articles of Confederation (1777) and The Constitution of the United States (1787). The Constitution of the United States is also a relatively static document, and has been amended only 27 times in its history.  This relative stability at Federal level contrasts dramatically with the instability of constitutional arrangements at State Level.  Since 1776 at least 235 constitutions have been in operation at different times to govern the various states of the Union, and several others have been proposed though never put into operation. In many cases, these constitutions were themselves amended dozens, or even many hundreds of times. As a result, the question, “What constitutional arrangements were in operation in America on a given date?” does not have a trivial answer.

The history of State Constitutional arrangements is now receiving revived attention from a number of archival and research projects, and this Network brings together researchers collating, digitizing, transcribing, editing, and analysing the records relating to U.S. State Constitutional History, along with those seeking to prepare new materials on state constitutional history for classroom use and broader civic education.

The U.S. State Constitutions Network is an outcome of a Knowledge Exchange Fellowship held by Dr Nicholas Cole (Quill Project, Oxford University) and Julie Silverbrook (ConSource, Washington DC) in 2018-19.