Amy Bridges - Democratic Beginnings: Founding in Western State

1. Upon the Shores of an Unknown Sea

In Democratic Beginnings I offer accounts of the constitutional conventions that founded the western statesArizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyomingand the constitutions they wrote. California was the first of these; its constitution was written in 1849 . Arizona and New Mexico were the last, holding their conventions in 1910 . State constitutions are fundamental law, blueprints for government institutions, statements of principles, values, and goals, and declarations of collective identity, written with fostering settlement and prosperity in mind. In this extended essay, I describe the puzzles and dilemmas delegates faced, their arguments about remedies and responses, and the compromises they reached. Delegates had a long list of achievements to their credit. Delegates extended the reach and enhanced the authority of state governments. They wrote law where little existed, in water and protections for working men, women, and children. Delegates created new institutions (mine inspectors, departments of agriculture and labor, corporation commissions) and familiar ones (elementary and normal schools, universities, prisons, grand juries). They reformed court systems and added duties to lower courts and county officials. They expanded bills of rights, elaborating those in the federal Constitution, adding positive rights, and including sweeping injunctions for state governments to fulfill new obligations to their residents. They chipped away at the law of master and servant.