The rising role of state constitutional law: an introduction to a series of articles on the South Dakota Constitution.

AuthorGarry, Patrick M.
  1. INTRODUCTION

    Over the last several decades, the field of state constitutional law has become both more prominent and influential. Consequently, state constitutions have been receiving more judicial attention and have been increasingly applied in a diverse array of settings.

    Across the country, more and more attention is being paid to state constitutions and the role they play in the broader framework of American constitutional law and development. This increasing attention is occurring at the same time that litigants are increasingly turning to state constitutional provisions in their constitutional litigation. In a way, this is an important, although perhaps unforeseen, legacy of the federalism revolution waged by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1990s, with more and more constitutional litigation focusing on the state constitutions.

    To support this intensifying focus on state constitutions, reference literature is needed to explain and analyze the structural schemes and substantive provisions of the various state constitutions. For this reason, a series of three subsequent articles seek to provide a general overview of the 1889 South Dakota Constitution through both a narrative and documentary history of that document. These articles respond not only to the need for greater study of the history of the South Dakota Constitution in particular, but also to the growing role and influence of state constitutional law in general in the American legal system. (1)

    The first article provides a narrative history of South Dakota statehood including the long and complex history of the drafting and ratification of the South Dakota Constitution. Before South Dakota was admitted as a state into the Union, three different constitutional conventions were held, each of which produced a constitutional document. The second article presents a discussion and analysis of the major issues of debate during the 1885 and 1889 constitutional conventions.

    Finally, the third article presents a documentary history of the South Dakota constitutional period through the lens of the journalistic coverage of relevant events. The selected newspaper articles illustrate various issues and controversies relevant to the drafting and ratification of the South Dakota Constitution. While obviously not comprehensive, the articles illustrate the larger social, economic, and political forces coming to bear on drafting and ratification of the South Dakota Constitution. The editors surveyed and examined hundreds of newspaper articles, choosing the selected articles as some of the best representative journalism samples of the constitutional period.

  2. THE UNIQUENESS OF THE SOUTH DAKOTA CONSTITUTION

    Through a study of state constitutional law, one can see both the consistencies between state constitutions and the unique aspects of each constitution. For instance, even though it is one of the nation's lesser-populated states, South Dakota has a unique constitution for a number of reasons.

    The history of the South Dakota Constitution is one of prolonged political struggle. Even though the Dakota Territory was being settled during the Civil War, South Dakota did not become a state until 1889. The primary reason for this long delay involved political conflicts at the national level. During the 1880s, for instance, the Democratic Congress opposed statehood for South Dakota, which was seen to be a strongly Republican-leaning state. South Dakota also achieved statehood at a time when railroads and corporate conglomerates played powerful roles on both the state and national scene. Although the railroads greatly contributed to South Dakota's development and population, they also threatened to corrupt or dominate state legal and political processes.

    The framers of the South Dakota Constitution borrowed heavily from the constitutions of other states. However, they also adapted the constitution to South Dakota's unique needs and settings. Perhaps the most unique and prominent feature of the South Dakota Constitution are its provisions on the initiative and referendum. As a point of historical notoriety, South Dakota was the first state in the Union to adopt the initiative and referendum, which was later adopted by dozens of other states. Indeed, the history of the initiative and referendum in South Dakota is one that had national ramifications.

    Whereas the initiative allows the public to bypass the legislature and directly pass new laws in a general election, the referendum allows the public to repeal a law previously enacted by the legislature. Initiative and referendum was one of the hallmark causes of the populism movement of the late nineteenth century. (2) The origins of the populist movement reached back to the 1870s with the Granger organization, which led to the Farmers' Alliance Movement in the 1880s throughout the western and southern states, which then led to the populist movement. (3) In just the two years between 1886 and 1888, the number of local Alliance groups in South Dakota increased from 256 to 744. (4) These movements arose in part out of farmers' beliefs that the railroads and eastern bankers were exploiting them. (5)

    The initiative and referendum first took root in Switzerland, which had employed direct legislation for decades. (6) The initiative and referendum movement in America was not based on a desire to do away with the legislative system; instead, the argument was put forth that the citizenry, "the source of all government," should be given the power to act when their legislatures failed or refused to represent the will of the people. (7)

    The idea of initiative and referendum was brought to the Dakota Territory in the mid-1880s by the Knights of Labor. (8) The cause was soon taken up by Henry Loucks, the president of the South Dakota Farmers' Alliance and future president of the National Farmers' Alliance. (9) Loucks was also editor of the agrarian reform newspaper, The Ruralist, and in this role promoted the initiative and referendum as an essential way of achieving economic reforms advocated by the...

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