Thread by @IJSanders

1. Perhaps more than any other state, Confederate resistance & Jim Crow dominate the history of Alabama’s constitutions. But that doesn’t mean the state has nothing to be proud of in its own fundamental law. Join us on #50Weeks50Constitutions’ journey into the “Heart of Dixie.”

2. Alabama & Mississippi both arose out of the MS Territory. We’ve already seen how MS’s statehood came about in 1817. 2 years later it was Alabama’s turn. A team of delegates met in Huntsville in July 1819 to craft the prospective state’s constitution.

https://twitter.com/IJSanders/status/1217065341207089153

3. For its time & its location the resulting constitution was fairly “progressive,” as they say. There were no property qualifications to vote (tho, of course, you had to be a white male) & it had guarantees of public education, & public ratification of constitutional amendments.

4. It also had the FIRST Baby Ninth Amendment in state constitutional history. I wrote a bit about that story on the provision’s 200th anniversary last summer in this thread. These interesting amendments protect unenumerated rights.

https://twitter.com/IJSanders/status/1150002197666643968

5. Later, Alabama didn’t just walk the walk on unenumerated rights, but talked the talk. In one of my favorite antebellum cases, the AL Supreme Court invalidated a licensing rule requiring an oath that the applicant has never engaged in a duel. In re Dorsey, 7 porter 295 (1838).

6. Read all about Alabama’s Baby Ninth saga in, um, MY article, Baby Ninth Amendments & Unenumerated Individual Rights in State Constitutions Before the Civil War, 68 Mercer L. Rev. 389 (2017).

libraries.mercer.edu/ursa/handle/10…

7. The state seemed to have enjoyed its constitution until things got less civil. 1861 brought succession & a new constitution. As you might imagine, the new version was intended to shore up separation from the US & protection of slavery.

8. Much blood & destruction later, it was time for an “Andrew Johnson approved” constitution, very early in the Reconstruction era. (Sept. 12, 1865) The constitution forbade slavery & pledged allegiance to the Union, but not a lot else.

9. No, that wasn’t good enough for the Reconstruction Congress. After its agenda, including the 14th Amendment, got going AL had to draft a new constitution. This 1868 version is the only one in the state’s history in which African Americans played a significant role in drafting.

10. 18 of the 100 delegates to the convention were black, & radical Republicans dominated. The resulting document protected the right of all male citizens, regardless of color, to vote, &, pursuant to Congress’ wishes, had loyalty oaths for voters & bars on ex-confederates.

11. It was unpopular with most whites & the majority of them boycotted the vote on ratifying it. That meant it failed to garner a majority of registered voters & thus failed under the 2d Reconstruction Act. But, Congress just retroactively fixed this with legislation.

12. In 1874, as Reconstruction ran out of steam, Democrats regained legislative control & called another convention. The new constitution set up segregated schools & put limits on state spending. Full disenfranchisement, though, had to wait for further federal abdication.

13. That came in 1901, not long after Plessy v. Ferguson. In one of the ugliest conventions in US history, the delegates put full effect to the “separate” in “separate but equal.” They were exceedingly explicit in their rhetoric about the need to eliminate black suffrage.

14. The constitution imposed literacy, employment, & property requirements for voting. Although these hit poor whites too, an exception for “veterans” allowed many of them to be registered anyway. The constitution was adopted, but only w/ voting fraud in black areas.

15. One other thing the 1901 Constitution did is make is super easy to amend. In fact it’s been amended over 900 times w/ over 300,000 words! That’s largely because most of the constitution actually only applies to certain local areas. It’s a constitutional purist’s nightmare.

16. Federal courts nullified the explicitly racial language in the Civil Rights Era, & most (but not all!) has been taken out by now (tho in fall 2020 the voters may finally do so). Even so, all things considered, Alabama might qualify as the state most needing a new convention.

17. Sources:

William Stewart, The Alabama Constitution
wethepeoplealabama.org/constitution-o…
legalgenealogist.com/2012/07/05/sta…