American State Constitutions: A Historical Series and Database

自1776年以来，美国各州不断修改和修订宪法。各州已经尝试了各种各样的选举权、代表权、立法结构、司法结构、公司法和公共财政。宪法本身就是美国历史上根本性制度变革的记录。这份记录不仅反映了美国人对政府看法的变化，也反映了美国经济制度约束的变化。自1997年以来，我们一直在收集各州宪法及其修正案的文本。大多数文本现在都可以在我们的网站上找到：www.bsos.umd.edu/wallis/constitution.asp。宪法最终将按条款和章节编入索引。该索引将包括30个主要部分和大约1000个主题。包含宪法的数据库可以按日期、州和主题进行搜索。本文的研究将有助于完成宪法的编码和索引，完成宪法修正案的收集和整合，并构建一系列衡量宪法属性的数据集。这些数据集涵盖一系列主题。它们将以电子表格的形式，按州和年份对每个条目进行详细分类。这些数据集也将通过网站提供。

Since 1776, American states have continually amended and revised their constitutions. States have experimented with a wide variety of suffrage, representation, legislative structures, judicial structures, corporate law, and public finance. The constitutions themselves are a record of fundamental institutional change in American history. It is a record that not only reflects changes in the way Americans think about their governments, but a record of the changing institutional constraints on the American economy.Since 1997 we have been assembling the texts of the state constitutions and their amendments. Most of the texts are now available on our web site: www.bsos.umd.edu/wallis/constitution.asp. The constitutions will ultimately be indexed by article and section. The index will include thirty main divisions and roughly a thousand topics. The database containing the constitutions can be searched by date, state, and topic. Text can be downloaded in the form of constitutions, articles, and sections.The proposed research will allow us to complete the coding and indexing of the constitutions; complete the collection and integration of constitutional amendments into the data base; and construct a series of data sets measuring attributes of constitutions. These data sets cover a range of topics. They will be in the form of spreadsheets with detailed breakdowns by state and year for each entry. The data sets will also be available through the web site.