{"id":174425,"date":"2026-10-01T14:32:02","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=174425"},"modified":"2026-10-01T15:15:35","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T19:15:35","slug":"gone-for-150-years-the-case-of-the-missing-constitutional-articles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2026\/10\/01\/gone-for-150-years-the-case-of-the-missing-constitutional-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"Gone for 150 years: The case of the missing constitutional articles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

For the past 11 days, Ladd Library has played the role of first host to a deceptively simple exhibition touring various state cultural institutions. Starting on Sept. 21, three pages of the Maine State Constitution were on display in a glass box on the first floor of Ladd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What made these particular pages, which only represent about 15 percent of the full State Constitution, worthy of a traveling exhibit? They had recently been printed by a Maine company, Wolfe Editions, using entirely old-fashioned means: vellum (an animal skin), a 19th century hand press, and cold-set ink. But what made them special is they contained words that hadn\u2019t seen the light of day \u2014at least in a printed copy of the State Constitution \u2014 for 150 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Language contained within Article X, including some related to the land rights of the Wabanaki Nations, disappeared from the last printed version of the State Constitution in 1876. In theory, foundational laws detailed in three sections of Article X hadn\u2019t changed. But as Associate Professor of History Joseph Hall put it in an explanatory talk at Ladd on Sept. 24, the description of them had been \u201cpainted over in an invisible ink, erased but still in existence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Associate
Associate Professor of History Joe Hall and Sam Howes, a reference and digital initiatives archivist at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, flank the display of the 2026 printing of the Maine State Constitution, which features restored sections of the document that had been redacted in 1876. (Carly Philpott ’27 for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The exact reasons have been lost to history, but in recent years the deliberate omission has been carefully examined by historians, discussed by tribal leaders, and speculated on broadly.\u00a0 In 2023, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows led a movement to rectify the omission through a constitutional amendment. Maine voters weighed in on Question 6: should the formerly redacted words be restored?\u00a0 It won by 73 percent and the display at Ladd represented the material results of that vote. The words were there, written in cold-set ink.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Maine State Archives had reached out to Sam Howes, a former employee of the state archives, now a reference and digital initiatives archivist at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library, about hosting the display this summer. Howes asked Hall, who teaches Native American history among other topics, to give some context for the exhibit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of his talk, Hall asked the assembled group of students, faculty, and staff why \u2014 and whether \u2014 the printed document mattered. \u201cWhy do we care about these kinds of things?\u201d he said. \u201cWe can get it on the internet. We don’t need to see this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then he began building the case for its visibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Associate
Associate Professor of History Joe Hall gives the background behind a new printing of the Maine State Constitution, which includes, for the first time in 150 years, three sections of Article X that had been redacted in 1876. From Sept. 21 to Oct. 1, Ladd Library hosted a display of three of the pages with restored language. (Carly Philpott ’27 for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Redacted since 1876, these missing words had been in the earliest draft of the State Constitution in 1819, under Article X. Within Article X, Section 5 specifically described what the former District of Maine had to do to become independent from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1820. Included in those rules was this provision:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new State shall, as soon as the necessary arrangements can be made for that purpose, assume and perform all the duties and obligations of this Commonwealth towards the Indians within said district of Maine, whether the same arise from treaties, or otherwise; and for this purpose shall obtain the assent of said Indians, and their release to this Commonwealth of claims and stipulations arising under the treaty at present existing between the said Commonwealth and said Indians.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Hall helped the assembled group get their heads around a complicated puzzle that spans three centuries, he held a copy of historian Catherine M. Burns\u2019 2021 scholarly work \u201c\u2018It May Be Questionable:\u2019 Granger v. Avery and the Redaction of Article X, Section 5 from the Maine Constitution.\u201d Originally printed in Maine History<\/em>, Burns\u2019 article won the 2022 James Phinney Baxter Award. It likely led directly to the 2026 printing of the State Constitution, only the third time the document has ever been printed. (While Burns\u2019 award-winning article is not available online, much of her findings are included in a piece she curated for the Maine Historical Society<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to bring it in part because basically you\u2019re going to get the five-minute version of this very interesting essay,\u201d Hall said. Burns, he said, found no document that explained the decision agreed to by voters in 1875 to redact the information in the 1876 printed constitution. But she did find \u201ca number of interesting circumstantial pieces that suggest why,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no, if you will, smoking gun that proves that the state was saying, \u2018We need to hide this section so that the Passamaquoddies don’t sue us for this land or for the loss of this land,\u2019\u201d Hall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"An
An audience of faculty, staff, and students gathered at Ladd Library on Sept. 24 to hear a talk by Joe Hall, associate professor of history, about the complex history of the Maine State Constitution, printed for the first time since 1876 and touring various cultural institutions this fall. (Carly Philpott ’27 for Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court had heard a legal case in 1874 that seemed highly relevant. Joseph Granger v. Peter Avery<\/em> was about a dispute between the Passamaquoddy and a lawyer from Calais named Joseph Granger, who believed he owned Grass Island in the St. Croix River. Peter Avery, a white Indian agent for the Passamaquoddy, had harvested hay on the island and authorized others to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Granger\u2019s claim was supported by a 1794 deed. But the tribe had a treaty with Massachusetts dating to the same year that established Grass Island and 14 other islands in the St. Croix were theirs. Granger won, and the Passamaquoddy lost, both the ownership of the island and their rights to harvest hay there. There was no restitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Burns found in her research was that Granger had a friend and junior partner named Frederick Pike, also from Calais. In 1875, Pike was on the constitutional commission tasked with cleaning up the document in 1875.\u00a0 Pike, Hall said, \u201cthen makes the suggestion among all the things that might get cleaned up in the constitution \u2018what if we also just take out Section 5?\u2019\u201d The decision was made to redact it instead, adding in language that it would still be enforced \u201cwith the same effect as if contained in said printed copies<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice President for Information and Library Services Patricia Schoknecht asked Hall why Maine didn\u2019t propose an amendment to entirely get rid of Article X in 1875.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state couldn\u2019t do that, Hall explained. \u201cBecause Massachusetts would have to agree to it.\u201d The Maine Constitution mandates Massachusetts\u2019 consent to annul or alter the Articles of Separation. That would include any changes in tribal relations in the state of Maine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2018t think Massachusetts was a hotbed of native sovereignty or something like that in 1875, because they’d already done their best to erase the Wampanoags and the Nipmuc and the other Native nations residing in Massachusetts,\u201d Hall said. \u201cBut the idea that you now have to ask some other state?\u201d As Hall suggests, there would perhaps be, 60 years into statehood, some resentment of the former \u201cowner\u201d of Maine getting to weigh in on future policy. To make it worse, Hall points out, there would also be \u201ca real sort of paper trail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this display of the amended and unredacted State Constitution, leaving Bates on Oct. 1 and headed next to the Turner Historical Museum, the paper trail is that much more visible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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