June 29, 2026: AmericanStudying the 250th: State Constitutions

[It’s impossible to think about our ongoing 250^th anniversary without engaging with the frustratingly Trumptastic American250 Commission, and I’ll write about such current events in my weekend post. But at the same time, I refuse to let that nonsense overshadow the complex and crucial histories themselves, so this week I’ll first AmericanStudy a handful of them!]

On three distinct and equally telling examples of founding documents from across 1776.

1. New Hampshire (January): New Hampshire was the first state to pass a Constitution, and in multiple ways this groundbreaking document reflects that status: it is quite brief, and reads like more of a placeholder for future steps than a full current one; and it consistently defers to the ongoing Second Continental Congress, as in the early line, “to establish some form of government, provided that measure should be recommended by the Continental Congress.” But at the same time, this founding document was definitely foundational for future ones, including in its creation of a two-chambered legislature with specific responsibilities that fully foreshadow the future federal government (ie, “That all bills, resolves, or votes for raising, levying, and collecting money originate in the House of Representatives”).
2. Delaware (September): I’m putting these three examples out of chronological order because I would argue that Delaware’s Constitution reflects a key, frustrating non-step that the majority of state Constitutions from this founding period featured: “the right of suffrage in the election of members for both houses shall remain as exercised by law at present,” which meant that strict and elitist property requirements for voting (and even stricter ones for office-holding) were not changed in any way. But at the same time, the Delaware Constitution’s Article 26 reads, “No person hereafter imported into this State from Africa ought to be held in slavery under any presence whatever; and no negro, Indian, or mulatto slave ought to be brought into this State, for sale, from any part of the world.” Not full abolition by any means (Pennsylvania’s Constitution, also ratified in September, was the only one to take that step in 1776), but a definite anti-slavery step nonetheless.
3. New Jersey (July): That Pennsylvania Constitution is usually framed as the most radical of these early founding documents, and with good reason (including that abolition of slavery but also much more democratic voting rights among other steps). But it was New Jersey’s Constitution that went the furthest when it came to universal suffrage, as its 4^th Article reads, “That all Inhabitants of this Colony of full Age, who are worth Fifty Pounds proclamation Money clear Estate in the same, & have resided within the County in which they claim a Vote for twelve Months immediately preceding the Election, shall be entitled to vote for Representatives in Council & Assembly.” The gender-neutral “all Inhabitants” was not coincidence, as this Constitution gave the vote to women, or at least widows who had fifty pounds (unmarried and married women could not own their own property in any state at this time). A reminder that ideas about suffrage, like all concepts in our founding, were debated and diverse in 1776.

Next 250^th anniversary post tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think?