For over 120 years, it has been barely known that there are actually two Constitutions in the history of the State of Washington. The first was ratified {see footnote 1} by the people of the Territory of Washington on November 5th in 1878. {see footnote 2} This constitution was properly signed and promptly entered into the public record. On January 28th, 1889, the 1878 constitution was presented to the United States Senate for inclusion into the union and printed in the Senate Journal.
There was about a 10 year span between when the 1878 Constitution was presented to the Federal government for joining the union and when it was actually accepted into the union in February 22nd, 1889. {see footnote 3} This delay was caused by a democratically controlled congress that didn't want republican states like Washington in the union.
A strange thing happend on the way to acceptance however.
On January 24th, 1889, more than 10 years after the first constitution was presented to the union and printed for approval, a Mr. H. C. Wilmarth of the committee for the Admission to the United States wrote to the Washington Territorial Governor, Eugene Semple, urgently requesting that he call for a constitutional convention to create another state constitution. This was done because there wasn't time to have the legislature call for one because they wouldn't be lawfully meeting again until after congress would have passed the enabling act. Mr. Wilmarth was desperately trying to meet a timetable.
Newspaper articles and correspondence of the day show discussions between Mr. Metcalf, the Attorney General, and Mr. Semple, the Governor concerning whether or not the Governor could lawfully call a constitutional convention by executive proclimation. Mr. Metcalf argued that this clearly could not be done because the executive doesn't represent the people and thus cannot have this power.
Nevertheless, Mr. Wilmarth and friends had their convention. It began, conveniently on the centenial of the United States Constitution, July 4, 1889 in Olympia, Washington despite the fact that it was never lawfully called for.
On that very same night, July 4, 1889, a huge fire in Ellensburgh wiped out the heart of the city. Ellensburgh was the site of the Statehood convention on January 3rd, 1889 where anxious delegates gave authority to Mr. Voorhees to get Washington accepted under the 1878 constitution. Now that a Republican President, Benjaman Harrison, had been elected, it seemed everyone was ready to get the ball rolling again.
In March of 1888, Walla Walla had a similar fire. Walla Walla was the site of the original constitution and was the place where many of the records about that constitution were stored. On June 4th, 1889, Seattle had another similar fire. In all these fires, critical historical records were destroyed. In all these fires, mysterious things happened, such as the failure of critical water systems, making it impossible to save the public records of the day. By August 22nd, 1889, the second constitution was completed in Olympia.
Finally, 11 years after the second convention was completed, the 1889 constitution was filed into the public record around 1900, illegally substituted for the previous constitution. There was never any record of this constitution being ratified by an election of the people. The filed Journal of the 1889 convention copy shows all 75 of the signatures were written in the same handwriting!
At the state archives you can find another original of the 1889 constitution written in a completely different hand bound in folios with a blank second page of a 2 page folio bound between the final page of the constitution and the signature page which begins a separate 4 page folio!
Finally, in 1957, the RCW created a volume 0 and published the 1889 constitution and this has been used as the official constitution of the state ever since.b>
So...
Not only has a fraudulant constitution been passed off as the real one, but the two constitutions differ in some significant ways. The older one guaranteed allodial land title to its inhabitants. That means that it prohibited property taxes and other leins on our property. It also prohibited any person, or association of persons, from occupying more that one branch of the government at the same time. These key protections for the people are not in the 1889 constitution. Both constitutions are quite similar in most respects but the order of the 1889 one is completely different than the 1878 one. It is as if some minor fixes were wanted but not in a way that anyone would notice.
