Utah's Constitution: A Reflection of the Territorial Experience BY THOMAS G. ALEXANDER
1849 AND 1895 UTAHNS DRAFTED NO LESS THAN SEVEN constitutions before Congress finally admitted the state into the Union in 1896.1 Though each of the constitutions differed in detail, each of them drew on one of three models. T h e first three constitutions drafted in 1849, 1856, and 1862 relied principally on the Iowa Constitution of 1846 as their model. 2 Those of 1872, 1882, and 1887 borrowed from the Nevada Constitution of 1864. 3 Delegates to the 1895 convention used an eclectic model. They drew on the previous six constitutions—especially the last three, but they also relied on numerous other constitutions especially those of Washington, Idaho, Montana, California, New York, Colorado, and Wyoming for various provisions.4 In addition, while the delegates drew their general framework from other constitutions, they included in each of them certain measures to answer local concerns. For instance, the constitution of 1872 BETWEEN
Dr. Alexander is Lemuel Hardison Redd, Jr., Professor of Western American History at Brigham Young University, Provo. 1 On the drafting of the various constitutions see: J e r o m e Bernstein, "A History of the Constitutional Conventions of the Territory of Utah from 1849 to 1895," (M.S. thesis, Utah State University, 1961). For the proceedings of the convention of 1895 see: State of Utah, Official Report of the Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Salt Lake City on the Fourth Day of March, 1895, to Adopt a Constitution for the State of Utah, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City, 1§98). 2 Peter Crawley, The Constitution of the State of Deseret (Provo: Friends of the BYU Library, 1982), p. 12. Until Crawley's work, most authorities had believed that the constitution of 1849 was modeled on the 1818 Illinois Constitution. See: Martin B. Hickman, "Utah Constitutional Law," (Ph.D. diss., University of Utah, 1954), pp. 42-44. 3 On the models for the constitutions see Bernstein, ""A History of the Constitutional Conventions," pp. 41-42, 57, 67; Gordon Morris Bakken, Rocky Mountain Constitution Making, 1850-1912 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 6-7; J o h n J. Flynn, "Federalism and Viable State Government—The History of Utah's Constitution," Utah Law Review (September 1966): 311-25; Martin Berkeley Hickman, "Utah Constitutional Law," (Ph. D. diss., University of Utah, 1954), 42-77; and Hickman, "The Utah Constitution: Retrospect and Prospect," in Neal A. Maxwell and Edward W. Clyde, Interim Report of the Constitutional Revision Commission Submitted to the Governor and the Legislature of the State of Utah (Salt Lake City: Constitutional Revision Commission, 1971), pp. 27-29. Hickman cites also a constitution of 1867 in one work and of 1869 in another. Actually, in January 1867 the territorial legislature petitioned for admission, and on October 7, 1869, the people held a mass meeting to petition for statehood. In neither case did they actually hold an additional constitutional convention. See Andrew Jenson, ed., Church Chronology: A Record of Important Events Pertaining to the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2d ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1914), pp. 76, 81. 4 For the sources of the various provisions see the memorials and committee reports filed with records of the Utah State Constitution in the Utah State Archives. In general, the endorsement pages of the memorials and committee reports cite the sources of the various provisions. See especially the memorials filed in box 2, Statehood Constitutional Convention, 1895, Convention Records, Utah State Archives, Salt Lake City (hereinafter cited SCC 1895.)