ABSTRACT
Throughout American constitutional history, states affected how the Constitution was maintained and what it means to maintain it. Fashioning such a role—irregular though the form was—brought new understandings of what the Constitution should mean, how it should be interpreted, and who had the authority to interpret it. Occasionally, it reshaped the political coalitions that held power and backed these interpretations and claims of authority. This chapter reflects on the impact of subnational practices to constitutionalism, political development, and what it affords to democratic constitutionalism in the twenty-first century.
