Constitution of the State of Maine
1820
Maine's constitution was drafted in Portland in the fall of 1819 and ratified by voters in December of that year, taking effect on March 15, 1820, the day Maine separated from Massachusetts and entered the Union as the twenty-third state. The separation from Massachusetts was itself the product of the Missouri Compromise, which paired Maine's admission as a free state with Missouri's admission as a slave state, and the drafters were acutely aware they were writing a founding document at a moment of national fragility over slavery. The Maine constitution borrowed heavily from the Massachusetts constitution of 1780, drafted in part by John Adams, but modified it in a more democratic direction by removing property qualifications for voting. It is the oldest state constitution still operating in its original form in the United States, amended many times but never replaced.
Preamble
We the people of Maine, in order to establish justice, insure tranquility, provide for our mutual defense, promote our common welfare, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty, acknowledging with grateful hearts the goodness of the Sovereign Ruler of the Universe in affording us an opportunity, so favorable to the design; and, imploring His aid and direction in its accomplishment, do agree to form ourselves into a free and independent State, by the style and title of the State of Maine and do ordain and establish the following Constitution for the government of the same.
Article I — Declaration of Rights
Section 1. All people are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness. Section 2. All power is inherent in the people; all free governments are founded in their authority and instituted for their benefit; they have therefore an unalienable and indefeasible right to institute government, and to alter, reform, or totally change the same, when their safety and happiness require it. Section 3. All individuals have a natural and unalienable right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and no person shall be hurt, molested or restrained in that person's liberty or estate for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of that person's own conscience. Section 4. Every citizen may freely speak, write and publish sentiments on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of this liberty; no laws shall be passed regulating or restraining the freedom of the press.