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Locating a State Constitution: A Beginner's Guide

Current State Constitutions

To locate a current state constitution, you can look in your state’s statute collection (often called “codes”). State codes generally print the constitution in the first volume of the collection.

Collections of Current State Constitutions

There are some resources that collect the constitutions for all the states in a single publication. The resources below link to bibliographic information describing these volumes in the Library of Congress Online Catalog and are available in the Law Library of Congress:

Copies of Individual State Constitutions

To locate a copy of a state’s code, you will first want to determine the title that has been given to the statute collection. The following resources will help you to find this information, and in many cases state governments provide a copy of the current edition of their constitution via their official website. You will find those links in the "Guide to Law Online" and "Legal Information Institute" below:

Finding Print Copies in a Library Near You

If the state's constitution is not available online, and you have identified the title of the state’s statute collection, you can find a print copy in a library near you by using OCLC WorldCat (links below). Simply search for the statute collection by title on the WorldCat Advanced Search, and choose an item from the results page. You can determine which libraries closest to you have the item by entering your zip code or city and state (and if international, your city and country) into the “Enter your location” search box under the “Find a copy in the library” section of the item’s catalog entry.