"the Organic Law of a Great Commonwealth": The Framing of the South Dakota Constitution‪.‬

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Legal scholars have criticized the "poverty of state constitutional discourse" caused by its limited historical depth and by the absence of historical research into the people and events surrounding the framing of state constitutions. (1) James Gardner has found a "general unwillingness among state supreme courts to engage in any kind of analysis of the state constitution at all." (2) A better understanding of the origins of state constitutions, according to Gardner, would advance of the "goal of creating in every state a vigorous, independent body of state constitutional law capable of standing by itself as a basis for constitutional rulings by state courts." (3) Studying the unique political history of a state, in other words, will foster the development of state constitutional law. When analyzing a "state's constitutional identity," scholars have focused on the "relationship between a constitution and the corresponding polity," which "must be grounded in an identifiable state community, an entity whose inhabitants share distinctive ideals, customs, and traditions." (4) The analysis of a state's unique political history can shape the development of a state's constitutional law. As Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson once noted, "All the differences in our state constitutions are not accidents of draftsmanship. Some of these differences reflect differences in our tradition." (5)