constitutional-law legal-terms
Terminology for a change in a state&#39;s status without a change in its constitution
<p>This will be a terminology question, but first I have to explain some situations.</p>
<p>In the U.S., each state has a written constitution that is higher than any act of the state legislature and is what grants the legislature its powers, and specifies how the state's government is organized. The constitution is drafted by statespersons within the state and voted on in a referendum within the state or within the area that is proposed to become a new state.</p>
<p>In all but one instance, when Congress as admitted a new state to the Union, a new constitution of that state took effect at the time of admission and superseded whatever system of governance existed there before that, and a new governor and other new officers of the state (legislators, judges, etc.) began their terms.</p>
<p>Before March 4, 1791, a polity then called the State of Vermont was neither one of the states of the Union nor a territory governed under and according to an act of Congress (as was done in many territories later), but was under a constitution drafted and put into effect within Vermont without any participation from outside Vermont, just as in states of the Union. In October 1790 Thomas Chittenden was sworn in to a one-year term as governor of the State of Vermont, succeeding Moses Robinson who had likewise been sworn in as governor of the State of Vermont one year earlier, and less than five months later when Vermont was admitted to the Union, he continued uninterrupted in the same one-year term as governor of the State of Vermont under the same constitution of the State of Vermont, as did all judges, sheriffs, members of the Governor's Council, etc.</p>
<p>So now my terminology question: Should one say that this was the only state that did not undergo an <b>internal constitutional discontinuity</b> at the time of its admission, or would some other phrasing be more correct or otherwise better?</p>

<p><strong>Law and language: You are asking the wrong question</strong></p>
<p>I take your point, but I'd say you are asking the wrong question. The more interesting question is why Vermont did not need to change its constitution upon statehood. The answer is simple: Vermont had this constitution because, <strong>from its beginning,</strong> Vermont's citizens <strong>hoped for statehood.</strong> They made this clear in their very first constitution, written in 1777. After explaining at length why Vermont could not remain in either the British Empire or New York state, the <a href="https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/vt01.asp" rel="nofollow noreferrer">preamble</a> says Vermont should be:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a <em>free and independent State</em>; and a...proper form of government, should exist in it, <em>derived from</em>, and <em>founded on</em>, the <em>authority of the people</em> only, <strong>agreeable to the direction of the honorable American Congress.</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Except for Vermont, Texas, California and West Virginia, the rest of the new states needed new constitutions because they had been territories of the US before statehood. As such, they did not have constitutions.</p>
<p>Only Vermont and Texas were &quot;independent&quot; until statehood. Unlike Vermont, Texas <strong>had</strong> to change its constitution before statehood because its constitution explicitly provided for national powers. For example, <a href="https://tarltonapps.law.utexas.edu/constitutions/texas1836/a2" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Sections</a> 4 and 5 of Article II of the Constitution of the Republic of Texas gave its Congress the power to:</p>
<ul>
<li>To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and to regulate captures.</li>
<li>To provide and maintain an army and navy, and to make all laws and regulations necessary for their Government.</li>
</ul>
<p>Obviously, these powers are inconsistent with statehood.</p>
<p><strong>How to talk about drastic change in governance institutions</strong></p>
<p>I see what you mean about there being a discontinuity, but I'd be wary of mathy metaphors, such as discontinuities, bifurcations, catastrophes or singularities. I'd stick with words commonly used to describe drastic constitutional change. For example, &quot;Vermont was the only new state that did not have a <em>constitutional revolution</em> when it became a state.&quot;</p>
<p>Having said that, I realize that constitutional historians and others love to talk about continuities, so why not use discontinuity?  My only caveat is that usually, they are talking more broadly than your wording (&quot;a discontinuity&quot;) suggests.</p>
