20 Texas Law Review [Vol. 87:7
three-quarters of the thirty-seven states in the Union in 1868, two-thirds of
those states, a majority of those states, one-quarter of those states, and less
than one-quarter of those states. We then grouped the rights into each of
these five categories. The idea underlying this nose count of states was that
the larger the number of states that recognized a right, the more likely it was
that the right was considered to be fundamental in 1868 and thus that it is
deeply rooted in our history and tradition. Because of the enormous amount
of data involved, we looked only at rights textually enumerated in state con-
stitutions and not at state court opinions construing those clauses. That
project would be a valuable, if not essential, one to undertake in the future.
We also created other groupings to shed light on the question of what
rights were deemed to be fundamental in 1868 such that they might today be
considered to be deeply rooted in our history and tradition. Thus, as men-
tioned above, we calculated what percentage of the total U.S. population at
the time lived in states where the particular constitutional guarantee in ques-
tion was recognized.
48
We also sorted the rights according to geographic
region—Northeast, South, and Midwest–West.
49
We wanted to know, for
example, whether gun rights were recognized more widely in some geo-
graphic regions in 1868 than in others. This might go to the question of
whether there was a broad federal consensus recognizing a particular right.
Finally, as mentioned above, we sorted the rights by date of enactment
of the relevant state constitution to figure out which state constitutional rights
were relatively “new” in 1868 and which were “old.” This allowed us to de-
termine whether each right became more or less pervasive in the years
leading up to 1868. It seemed important to us to separate out those state con-
stitutional rights that were relatively new in 1868 from those that dated back
to the founding of the republic. Arguably, a constitutional right that three-
quarters of the states recognized in 1868 might not have been deemed to be
48. This was done by obtaining a population census from 1870 for each state and multiplying
the states in which each right was guaranteed by their respective populations. In 1870, there were
38,115,641 people in the United States. The breakdown of population by state was as follows:
Alabama, 996,992; Arkansas, 484,471; California, 560,247; Connecticut, 537,454; Delaware,
125,015; Florida, 187,748; Georgia, 1,184,109; Illinois, 2,539,891; Indiana, 1,680,637; Iowa,
1,194,020; Kansas, 364,399; Kentucky, 1,321,011; Louisiana, 726,915; Maine, 626,915; Maryland,
780,894; Massachusetts, 1,457,351; Michigan, 1,184,059; Minnesota, 439,706; Mississippi,
827,922; Missouri, 1,721,295; Nebraska, 122,993; Nevada, 42,491; New Hampshire, 318,300; New
Jersey, 906,096; New York, 4,382,759; North Carolina, 1,071,361; Ohio, 2,665,260; Oregon,
90,923; Pennsylvania, 3,521,951; Rhode Island, 217,353; South Carolina, 705,606; Tennessee,
1,258,520; Texas, 818,579; Vermont, 330,551; Virginia, 1,225,163; West Virginia, 442,014;
Wisconsin, 1,054,670. Univ. of Va. Library, Historical Census Browser, http://fisher.lib.virginia.
edu/collections/stats/histcensus/php/start.php?year=V1870.
49. The categorization of states by region is as follows: Northeast (ten states, population
12,423,745)—Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New
York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont; Midwest–West (twelve states, population
11,939,296)—California, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada,
Ohio, Oregon, Wisconsin; and South (fifteen states, population 13,752,600)—Alabama, Arkansas,
Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia.