Louisiana Constitutional Law - History
A Pathfinder
Compiled by
Charlotte Melius
February 1998
Revised by Randall J. Thompson
February 2004
LOUISIANA CONSTITUTIONAL LAW HISTORY
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
LOUISIANA CONSTITUTIONAL LAW HISTORY
Text of Old Constitutions
West’s Louisiana Statutes Annotated, Constitution. vol. 3, St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1977.
Main Reading Room
State Statutes, 2nd Floor
Louisiana Research Collection, 3rd Floor
US Research Collection, 4th Floor
This volume is printed as a part of the West’s Louisiana Statutes Annotated. It contains the text of all past Louisiana constitutions, but annotations are excluded. Other books may contain annotations or other commentaries on the constitutions. These titles can be located by searching the Library’s online catalog using the keywords “Louisiana constitutions”. Some of these titles follow.
Constitution of the State of Louisiana, Adopted in Convention, June 18, 1921. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, [1921].
Tucker Rare La.47 1921 B63c
Constitution of the State of Louisiana, Adopted in Convention at the City of Baton Rouge, November 22, 1913. Baton Rouge: Ramires-Jones Printing Company, 1913.
Rare La.47 1913 0f2c
Constitution of the State of Louisiana, Adopted in Convention at the City of New Orleans, May 12, 1898. New Orleans: H. J. Hearsey, 1898.
Louisiana Collection La.47 1898 Of2c
Constitution of the State of Louisiana, Adopted in Convention at the City of New Orleans, the Twenty-third Day of July, A. D. 1879. New Orleans: J. H. Cosgrove 1879.
Louisiana Collection La.48 1879 Of2o
Constitution of the State of Louisiana, Adopted in Convention July 23d, 1864. New Orleans: Era, 1864.
Rare La.47 1864 Er1
The New Constitution of the State of Louisiana: Adopted in Convention on the Fourteenth of May, 1845, and Ratified by the People of the State on the Fifth of November, 1845. With a Comparative View of the Old and New Constitutions of the State; and a Copious Index. New Orleans: J. C. Morgan, 1845.
Louisiana Collection La.5 G487n 1845
Debates and Journals of the Constitutional Conventions
Bennett, Albert P. Bennett. Debates in the Convention for the Revision and Amendment of the Constitution of the State of Louisiana. Assembled at Liberty Hall, New Orleans, April 6, 1864. New Orleans: W. R. Fish, 1864.
Louisiana Collection La.48 1864 Of2d
Journal of the Convention to Form a New Constitution for the State of Louisiana. New Orleans: Crescent Office, 1852.
Louisiana Collection La.48 1852 Of2j
Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of 1973 of the State of Louisiana Begun and Held in the City of Baton Rouge, January 5, 1973. [Baton Rouge: s.n., 1974]. Louisiana Collection La.48 1973 Of2o
Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Louisiana, Held in New Orleans, Monday, April 21, 1879. By Authority. New Orleans: J. H. Cosgrove, 1879. Louisiana Collection La.48 1879 Of2o
Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of the State of Louisiana: Held in New Orleans, Tuesday, February 8, 1898. And Calendar. By Authority. New Orleans: H. J. Hearsey, Convention Printer, 1898.
Rare La.47 1898 Of2c2
Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention, for Framing a Constitution for the State of Louisiana. By Authority. New Orleans: J. B. Roudanez & Co., 1867-1868.
Louisiana Collection La.48 1867-68 Of2o
Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention for the Revision and Amendment of the Constitution of the State of Louisiana. By Authority. New Orleans: W. R. Fish, 1864.
Louisiana Collection La.48 1864 Of2o
Official Report of Debates in the Louisiana Convention. [Aug. 5th, 1844-Jan. 17th, 1845]. [New Orleans? 1845?]
Louisiana Collection La.48 1844-45 Of2r
Records of the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973. [Baton Rouge]: Louisiana Constitutional Convention Records Commission, [1974?]-c1979.
Reserve KFL 401 1974 .A15
Additional Information on Louisiana Constitutions
Dart, Benjamin Wall, ed. Constitutions of the State of Louisiana and Selected Federal Laws. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, [1932].
Louisiana Collection La.47 1932 D255c
Hart, William Octave. Comparison of the Constitutions of 1898 and 1913, and other Articles Relating to Former Constitutions and the Supreme Court and other Courts of Louisiana. New Orleans: Printed by the author for private distribution, 1914.
Louisiana Collection La.5 H251c 1914
________________. The Constitutions of Louisiana, 1812 to 1913 including Observations on the Constitutional Convention of 1921. microfiche reprint. Woodbridge, Conn.: Primary Source Media, 1999.
Microform 20th-century legal treatises; fiches 42,736
Hargrave, W. Lee, The Louisiana State Constitution: A Reference Guide. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
Reserve KFL401 1974 .A6 H37 1991
Muse, J. H., A Review of the Constitution Submitted to the People of Louisiana, in Connection with the Constitutions of 1852 and 1868. New Orleans: F. F. Hansell, 1879.
Louisiana Collection La.5 M972c 1879
Powell, Alden Leslie, A History of Louisiana Constitutions. found in Projet of a Constitution for the State of Louisiana with Notes and Studies, vol. 1, pt. 1. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Law Institute, 1954.
Louisiana Collection La.47 1954 L53c v.1 pt.1
West’s Louisiana Statutes Annotated Constitution. vols. 1-3, St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1977- .
Main Reading Room
State Statutes, 2nd Floor
Louisiana Research Collection, 3rd Floor
US Research Collection, 4th Floor
(The history notes under each article will follow its change and development and the notes of decisions denote case law concerning that particular article. Law review and journal articles may also be listed.)
General Louisiana Legal Research Guides:
The Library contains other works dealing with general legal research in Louisiana. Two prominent publications are listed below. Other works can be located by searching the Library’s online catalog for the keywords “Louisiana legal research”.
Chiang, Win-Shin S. Louisiana Legal Research. 2nd ed. Austin, TX: Butterworth Legal Publishers, 1990.
Reserve KFL 75 .C47 1990
Wallach, Kate. Research in Louisiana Law. Baton Rouge, La.: Louisiana State University Press, 1958.
Reserve KFL 75 .W35 1972
Locating Books
In addition to the books mentioned previously, other books can be found in the Library dealing with Louisiana constitutional law and history. The online catalog is available through the Library’s home page. Keyword searches using the following terms may be helpful:
Louisiana constitutional conventions
Louisiana constitutional history
Louisiana constitutional law
Louisiana constitutions
Locating Journal Articles
Westlaw and Lexis can be used to locate full text articles on the history of Louisiana constitutional law. The following databases can be used:
Full text articles:
Lexis: LAWREV library; ALLREV file
Westlaw: JLR
In addition, Westlaw and Lexis can also be used to locate cites to articles that are not available online in full text. These cites are available from the databases for the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books and the Current Law Index.
These databases can be found at:
Citations from Index to Legal Periodicals and Books
Lexis: LAWREV library; ILP file
Westlaw: ILP
Citations from Current Law Index
Lexis: LAWREV library; LGLIND file
The Index to Legal Periodicals and Books is also available through the Library’s home page under Indexes and Databases.
The Index to Legal Periodicals and Books and the Current Law Index have print versions which are available in the library. The print versions have longer and greater depth of coverage of articles indexed than what is available online in full text. For historical research, these sources may likely offer a greater number of relevant articles than the online sources. The Library will have many of the journals cited in these indexes. Use the online catalog mentioned above to find where the journals are located in the Library.
Locating Cases:
Case law discussing Louisiana constitutional law can be found on Westlaw and Lexis. On Westlaw, these cases will be found in the LA-CS database using the topic search to(92). On Lexis, these same cases can be located by searching in the Louisiana constitutional law library and file, LA;CONLAW.
Case law can also be located using the print publication West’s Louisiana Digest. This publication indexes all the headnotes found in the Louisiana cases on Westlaw. The Digest is published in two series. The first series contains Louisiana cases issued prior to 1935 while the second series contains cases issued from 1935 to present. To fully research a Louisiana constitutional law issue, you may need to consult both series. Cases will be found under the topic heading of Constitutional Law. The first series is located in the Main Reading Room of the Library. The second series is also there and can be found on the third and fourth floors as well.
