The
Constitution of the Commonwealth of Kentucky is the document that governs the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Commonwealth of KentuckyThe Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. Kentucky is a Southern state situated in the Upland South, although the state is infrequently placed, geographically and culturally, in the Midwest. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a...
. It was first adopted in 1792 and has since been rewritten three times and amended many more. The latter versions were adopted in 1799, 1850 and 1891.
The 1792 Constitution
The first
constitutional conventionA constitutional convention is a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...
of Kentucky was called by Colonel
Benjamin LoganBenjamin Logan was an American pioneer, soldier, and politician from Shelby County, Kentucky. As colonel of the Kentucky County militia of Virginia during the American Revolutionary War, he was second-in-command of militia in Kentucky...
on December 27, 1784 in
DanvilleDanville is a city in and the county seat of Boyle County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 15,477 at the 2000 census.Danville is the principal city of the Danville Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Boyle and Lincoln counties....
, the capital of
Kentucky County, VirginiaKentucky County was formed by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1776 by dividing Fincastle County into three new counties: Kentucky, Washington, and Montgomery...
. Over the next eight years, a total of ten constitutional conventions were called, each making some progress toward a viable constitution. The state's first constitution was accepted by the
United States CongressThe United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States of America, consisting of two houses, the Senate and the House of Representatives. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election....
on June 1, 1792, making Kentucky the fifteenth state.
The 1792 Constitution had several similarities to the
United States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme law of the United States. It is the foundation and source of the legal authority underlying the existence of the United States of America and the federal government of the United States...
in that it provided for three branches of government – legislative, executive, and judicial – and a bicameral legislature called the
General AssemblyThe Kentucky General Assembly, also called the Kentucky Legislature, is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Kentucky.The General Assembly meets annually in the state capitol building in Frankfort, Kentucky, convening on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in January...
. The document contained a
bill of rightsA bill of rights is a list of the rights that are considered important and essential by a nation. The purpose of these bills is to protect those rights against infringement by the government...
, and called for an electoral college to elect senators and the state's governor. (Representatives were chosen by popular election.)
Some relatively new ideas were included in the 1792 Constitution. One was the stipulation that the General Assembly vote by
ballotA ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use pre-printed to protect the...
instead of voice. There was also a requirement that representation to the General Assembly be based on population, not geography.
The 1792 Constitution was seen as an experiment called for a re-evaluation of the document at the end of the century.
The 1799 Constitution
A second constitutional convention was called for by the voters of Kentucky in 1799. The 1799 Constitution abolished the electoral college, allowing senators, representatives, the governor, and the newly-created office of
lieutenant governorThe office of lieutenant governor of Kentucky has existed under the last three of Kentucky's four constitutions, beginning in 1797. The lieutenant governor serves as governor of Kentucky under circumstances similar to the Vice President of the United States assuming the powers of the presidency...
to be
directly electedDirect election is a term describing a system of choosing political officeholders in which the voters directly cast ballots for the person, persons or political party that they desire to see elected. The method by which the winner or winners of a direct election are chosen depends upon the...
. In addition to appointing judges, the governor was given the power to appoint a number of local offices including
sheriffsIn the United States, a sheriff is generally the highest law enforcement officer of a county and commander of militia in that county. A distinct part of law enforcement in the United States, sheriffs are usually elected. The political election of a person to serve as a police leader is an almost...
,
coronerA coroner or forensics examiner is an official chiefly responsible for investigating deaths, particularly some of those happening under unusual circumstances, and determining the cause of death. Depending on the jurisdiction, the coroner may adjudge the cause himself, or act as the presiding...
s, and
justices of the peaceA justice of the peace is a puisne judicial officer appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. Depending on the jurisdiction, they might dispense summary justice and deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions...
.
With all of these expansions in the governor's power, the 1799 Constitution also placed
term limitA term limit is a legal restriction that limits the number of terms a person may serve in a particular elected office. Term limits are found usually in presidential and semi-presidential systems as a method to curb the potential for dictatorships, where a leader effectively becomes "president for...
s on the governor, stipulating that a governor could not succeed himself in office for a period of seven years. Membership in both houses of the General Assembly was also limited.
In some ways, the 1799 Constitution was a regression. The progressive idea of voting by
ballotA ballot is a device used to record choices made by voters. Each voter uses one ballot, and ballots are not shared. In the simplest elections, a ballot may be a simple scrap of paper on which each voter writes in the name of a candidate, but governmental elections use pre-printed to protect the...
in the General Assembly was removed. Neither of the first two Kentucky constitutions provided a method of amendment, and the 1799 Constitution made it even more difficult to call a
constitutional conventionA constitutional convention is a gathering for the purpose of writing a new constitution or revising an existing constitution. A general constitutional convention is called to create the first constitution of a political unit or to entirely replace an existing constitution...
.
The 1799 Constitution was regressive for blacks as well. It retained the pro-slavery provisions of the original constitution untouched, but went a step further by disenfranchising free blacks.
The 1850 Constitution
It was not long before some of the weaknesses in the 1799 Constitution were exposed. As early as 1828, some in the General Assembly began calling for a new constitutional convention. However, because the 1799 Constitution made the calling of a convention such an arduous task, it took more than twenty years to call the convention, which finally convened in
FrankfortFrankfort is a city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky that serves as the state capital and the county seat of Franklin County. The population was 27,741 at the 2000 census; by population, it is the 5th smallest state capital in the United States...
on October 1, 1849.
One major item of dissatisfaction with the 1799 Constitution was the appointment of so many officials by the governor. The was addressed in the 1850 Constitution by making all state officials, even judges, popularly elected and imposing term limits on these offices.
While the Kentucky Constitution had always provided for protection of slave property, pro-slavery forces sought and received even greater protections in the 1850 Constitution. Among the new provisions were a requirement that slaves and their offspring remain in the state, and that ministers of religion – thought to be largely anti-slavery – were prohibited from holding the office of governor or seats in the General Assembly.
The bulk of the reforms in the 1850 Constitution, however, were reserved for the General Assembly, whose spending had spiraled out of control. Membership in the Senate was fixed at 38; in the House the number was fixed at 100. Sessions of the General Assembly were limited to sixty days biennially, requiring a two-thirds majority to extend them.
The 1850 Constitution also created a
sinking fundA Sinking Fund is a fund established by a government agency or business for the purpose of reducing debt.-Historical Context:The sinking fund was first used in Great Britain in the 18th century to reduce national debt...
for the liquidation of the state's debt, which had climbed to $4.5 million. To prevent the debt from climbing too high in the future, the 1850 Constitution mandated a maximum of $500,000 of indebtedness for the state. At the time, this represented about a year's worth of revenue for the state, but this provision remains in the current Kentucky Constitution, even though receipts in the 2001-02 fiscal year were approximately $6.5 billion.
Another dated provision of the 1850 Constitution that survives in the present Constitution is the ineligibility for public office of anyone who had participated in a
duelAs practiced from the 11th to 20th centuries in Western societies, a duel is an engagement in combat between two individuals, with matched weapons in accordance with their combat doctrines. In the modern application, the term is applied to aerial warfare between fighter pilots...
since the ratification of the 1850 Constitution. While the relevance of this prohibition may be disputed now, it could potentially have derailed Governor
William GoebelWilliam J. Goebel was an American politician who served as Governor of Kentucky for a few days in 1900 after having been mortally wounded by an assassin the day before he was sworn in...
's eligibility for public office in the 1890's.
The 1891 Constitution
Ratification of the
ThirteenthThe Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. It was adopted on December 6, 1865, and was then declared in a proclamation of Secretary of State William H...
,
FourteenthThe Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, along with the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, was adopted after the Civil War as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. It was adopted on July 9, 1868....
, and
FifteenthThe Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
Amendments to the U. S. Constitution following the
Civil WarThe American Civil War , also known as the War Between the States and several other names, was a civil war in the United States of America. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America...
provided the impetus for another constitutional convention, since much of the existing constitution provided protection for slave property and were now at odds with the Federal Constitution. However, this required a majority of the voters in the previous two elections to vote in favor of a convention, a measure that failed every two years from 1873 to 1885, finally receiving the necessary majority in 1888 and 1889 after the General Assembly called for a registration of all eligible voters in 1887. The convention began September 8, 1890.
For the first time, ratification of the constitution required a referendum of the citizens. At the same time, the 1891 Constitution did little to ameliorate the difficult process of calling a constitutional convention. This resulted in failed calls for subsequent constitutional conventions in 1931, 1947, 1960, and 1977. The 1891 Convention did, for the first time, provide a means of amending itself that has been used by the General Assembly to keep a century-old document somewhat current.
Judicial decisions have also helped to adapt the current constitution to modern times. For example, the 1891 Constitution limited state officials' salaries to $5000. A 1949 Amendment raised this number to $12,000, but difficulty of keeping the number up-to-date quickly became apparent. The 1962
Kentucky Supreme CourtThe Kentucky Supreme Court was created by a 1975 constitutional amendment and is the state supreme court of the U.S. state of Kentucky. Prior to that the Kentucky Court of Appeals was the only appellate court in Kentucky...
case
Matthews v. Allen addressed this problem by opining that the only way to keep
circuit judgeCircuit Judges are senior judges in England and Wales who sit in the Crown Court, County Courts and certain specialized sub-divisions of the High Court of Justice, such as the Technology and Construction Court. The office of Circuit Judge was created by the Courts Act 1971. Circuit Judges are...
's salaries adequate, as required by Section 133 of the constitution, was to allow the General Assembly to adjust the $12,000 figure in Section 246 to account for the value of a dollar in 1949.
Despite some provisions that some claim are antiquated, the 1891 Constitution (as amended) remains the constitution that governs the Commonwealth today.
1992
Several amendments to the Kentucky Constitution were enacted in 1992. One important amendment lifted the restriction that the Governor could not succeed himself or herself in office. Per the 1992 amendment, the incumbent can seek one additional term before becoming ineligible for four years. The amendment was drafted so that it did not apply to the then-current holder of the office (Brereton Jones), which meant that the first Governor to which the amendment applied was elected in 1995 (
Paul PattonPaul E. Patton served as Democratic governor of Kentucky from 1995 to 2003. He is a Presbyterian, and lives in Pikeville, Kentucky.Patton was born in Fallsburg, which is in Lawrence County, Kentucky. In 1959, he received his B.S...
).
The 1992 amendments to Kentucky's Constitution significantly changed the office of Lieutenant Governor. Previously, the Lieutenant Governor became acting Governor whenever the Governor was out of state. Since the amendments took effect, the Lieutenant Governor only takes over gubernatorial powers when the Governor is incapacitated.
The amendments also removed the Lieutenant Governor's duties in the Senate — previously, the Lieutenant Governor had cast the tie breaking vote in the Senate.
Finally, the amendments allow candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor to run on a single ticket. Prior to the amendments, the two offices were sometimes inhabited by members of different parties.
See also Lieutenant Governor of KentuckyThe office of lieutenant governor of Kentucky has existed under the last three of Kentucky's four constitutions, beginning in 1797. The lieutenant governor serves as governor of Kentucky under circumstances similar to the Vice President of the United States assuming the powers of the presidency...
2004
In 2004, Kentucky became the fourth state to send a
defense of marriage amendmentDefense of marriage amendment is a term used to describe two different kinds of U.S. state constitutional amendments and also similar legislation in some other countries. The first prevents a state from legalizing same-sex marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships, while the second kind bans...
to the state's voters. On
Election DayElection Day in the United States is the day set by law for the election of public officials.For federal offices , it occurs on the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in even-numbered years; the earliest possible date is November 2 and the latest November 8...
of that year, Kentucky joined 10 other states in passing such an amendment, with voters passing it by a 3-to-1 margin. The text of the amendment reads:
"Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Kentucky. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized."
External links
- Full texts of the various versions of the Kentucky Constitution
- http://digital.library.louisville.edu/cdm4/results.php?CISORESTMP=results.php&CISOVIEWTMP=item_viewer.php&CISOMODE=grid&CISOGRID=thumbnail,A,1;title,A,1;subjec,A,0;descri,200,0;none,A,0;20;title,none,none,none,none&CISOBIB=title,A,1,N;subjec,A,0,N;descri,200,0,N;none,A,0,N;none,A,0,N;20;title,none,none,none,none&CISOTHUMB=20%20(4x5);title,none,none,none,none&CISOTITLE=20;title,none,none,none,none&CISOHIERA=20;subjec,title,none,none,none&CISOSUPPRESS=0&CISOTYPE=link&CISOOP1=exact&CISOFIELD1=altern&CISOBOX1=Revision+of+the+Kentucky+Constitution+1849&CISOOP2=exact&CISOFIELD2=subjec&CISOBOX2=&CISOOP3=exact&CISOFIELD3=descri&CISOBOX3=&CISOOP4=exact&CISOFIELD4=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOBOX4=&c=exact&CISOROOT=%2Flist%2C%2FlawReport of the debates & proceedings of the Convention for the revision of the cConstitution of the state of Kentucky (Frankfort, A.G. Hodges & Co., 1849)]