Конституция штата Орегон

Governing document of the state of Oregon, enacted in 1857

The Oregon Constitution is the governing document of the U. S. state of Oregon, originally enacted in 1857. As amended the current state constitution contains eighteen sections, beginning with a bill of rights. This contains most of the rights and privileges protected by the United States Bill of Rights and the main text of the United States Constitution. The remainder of the Oregon Constitution outlines the divisions of power within the state government, lists the times of elections, and defines the state boundaries and the capital as Salem.

The first constitutional documents enacted in Oregon pre dated statehood. These were the Organic Law of 1843 and the Organic Law of 1845, adopted to govern Oregon Territory. In 1857, leaders of the territory gathered at the Oregon Constitutional Convention and drafted the current constitution. Over half of the document's content was derived in part from the Indiana constitution. The constitution of 1857 included a racial exclusion section that excluded African Americans and Chinese from the state. (See Racism in Oregon.) On November 9, 1857, Oregon voters approved its first constitution that then became effective upon statehood on February 14, 1859. In 1916, Oregonians voted to keep Section 6 of Article II of the constitution, which read "No negro, Chinaman or mulatto shall have the right of suffrage", even though it had been rendered void by the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. In 1927, Oregonians finally decided to remove this suffrage exclusion from their constitution.