CORYDON, Ind. — Over 200 years since being drafted, Indiana’s first constitution is back home.
The state’s original handwritten constitution will be housed temporarily at the Corydon home of Indiana’s third governor, William Hendricks.
Gov. Mike Braun visited it Wednesday, as well as the stump of the “Constitution Elm” under which delegates, including Hendricks, deliberated the constitution 210 years ago.
It’s part of a series of celebrations in Corydon and throughout Indiana commemorating the state’s history, 250 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
“While we’re broadly celebrating the 250th of the country, we can’t ignore that in a federal style of government, state constitutions are always interacting with the federal constitutions,” said Chandler Lighty, executive director of the Indiana Archives and Records Administration, which provided the constitution to the site on loan. “And an exhibit like this, celebrating the state constitution, really informs the broader 250th celebrations.”
After the U.S. Congress approved legislation to enable the Indiana territory to become a state, 43 elected delegates met in Corydon, then the territorial capital, to draft a constitution. Beginning on June 10, 1816, the process took just about three weeks. Later that year, Indiana was admitted as a state.
Because of that summer’s heat, delegates are said to have held some of their discussions under the shade of a large tree with branches that spread over 100 feet. On Wednesday, 210 years later, Corydon had a heat index high between 100 and 105 degrees.
The constitution they created stated Corydon would be the state’s capital for nine years. The first capitol and home to the governor were located there.
Indiana was settled from the south and gradually further north, said Susannah Koerber, chief curator and research officer for Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, and Corydon was at the east-west center of where the people were.
The capital eventually moved in 1825 to “Indianapolis because by that time, it was clear the population was going to be extending north of the state,” she said.
The original constitution, too, was later replaced in 1851. Still, it had many ideas that continue to resonate both state-side and nationally, Koerber said. The constitution said that, when feasible, public education would be provided by the state.
“They were really thinking ahead to the role of education in a democracy,” she said.
The 72-page constitution will remain on display in Corydon until July 5 at the Corydon Capitol State Historic Site.
Denver Bays, southeast regional program developer for Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites, said people can take away its connection both to the constitutions that came both before and after it.
“Everything has a connection, and a tie, and it all started here, at least for Indiana, in Corydon,” he said.
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