Sagebrush State the Political History

¶ … Sagebrush State

The political history of the state of Nevada begins on the eve of the Civil War, when on March 2, 1861, the Nevada Territory separated from the Utah Territory, adopting its name from the mountain range the Sierra Nevada. The federal government gave the go-ahead for statehood for Nevada for its own reasons: As civil war became almost an inevitability, the federal government wanted more free states in the union. But the citizens of what would become Nevada had their own reasons as well. There was conflict -- sometimes arising to the level of lethal violence -- between Mormons and non-Mormons. As a result, non-Mormons were glad to be given their own state.

Nevada's statehood helped to ensure Abraham Lincoln's election, and after the war the state remained closely linked to the industrialized states of the North because of its mining industry. From the beginning of the 20th century, the state's political leaders have worked to supplement mining with "sin" services from quick divorces to gambling to prostitution. The state has thus chosen to fulfill an economically viable but culturally ambivalent position, as Bowers (2006) notes in his overview of Nevada's history.

The state is governed by a bicameral legislature (as is almost universally true in the United States) in conjunction with a governor. Unlike the state's legislative and executive branches (which mirror those of its neighboring states), Nevada's judicial system is unusually constituted. There are no intermediary appellate courts in Nevada, which forces the state Supreme Court to review all appeals.

Civil Rights in Nevada

That there are numerous similarities and parallels between the Nevada state constitution and the United States Constitution -- something that should not be in any way surprising since state constitutions are not permitted by federal law to violate any aspect of federal law, including any aspect of the Constitution. However, this does not mean that each state does not in important ways put the impress of its own culture and values on its Constitution.

Some of the similarities between the state and federal constitutions lie in the descriptions of the separation of powers. Like the federal government, the state government divides its powers among a legislative, an executive, and a judicial branch. As noted above, however, the state constitution devises a court system that is different from that of the federal system. The state has a supreme court that must field all appeals sent to it because there is no intermediary set of courts between the trial court and the state supreme court. This differs from the federal system in which there is the district courts of appeal. Because there are intermediary courts in the federal system, the U.S. Supreme Court can refuse to hear any case.

Both state and federal constitution emphasize the importance of civil rights. Civil rights can be defined as a class of rights that are listed (or enumerated, as opposed to implied) that are incorporated into a written document such as a constitution to provide protection for individuals against the power of the state. For example, both the U.S. And the state constitutions grant individuals freedom of religion. Such a provision is designed to allow individual to practice whatever religion they wish in whatever manner they wish. (as a note, this is not entirely true -- but that is a complex area of statutory law. For example, one cannot sacrifice humans in a religious service; however, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that it is legal to sacrifice non-human animals during the course of a santeria ritual.)

The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution notes that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The fact that the Framers of the Constitution decided to make this the first of all enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights should be noted: They clearly thought that government should not be involved in the business of faith. This is something that sometimes seems to have been forgotten in current debates about whether the United States is a "Christian country." The founders of our nation, if they have been so inclined, could have spelled out in explicit terms that the country was not to be Christian. but, guided by the tenets of the Enlightenment, they determined that religious freedom was paramount.

The Nevada state constitution also emphasizes freedom of religion as one of the most important rights. The second statement of the constitution's opening Ordinance states: "That perfect toleration of religious sentiment shall be secured, and no inhabitant of said state shall ever be molested, in person or property, on account of his or her mode of religious worship." That this freedom should be listed so prominently in the state constitution makes perfect sense within the context of the historical development of state history.

One of the reasons that the residents of what would become Nevada desired statehood was that they were looking for a sanctuary from the Mormons who were the majority of the population in the Utah Territory. The non-Mormons were directly aware of the costs of living in what was in some ways a theocratic state and wanted to ensure that they, as members of minority communities of faith (or as agnostics or atheists), received the full protection of the state government (in alliance with the federal government) to protect them.

Civil rights can also be defined as protecting the ability of each person to participate in the public life of the state and the nation without meeting with repression or any degree of discrimination. The U.S. Constitution, in the First Amendment argues that the federal government will not limit the "right of the people peaceably to assemble" or "to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." By including these rights, the Framers emphasized the essentially participatory nature of democracy.

Of course, the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were not in fact extended to all Americans during the 18th century. It was not until the 19th century and the Civil War that the Constitution was amended in an attempt to ensure that black men would share in the same rights that had in large measure been claimed only by whites, and in some cases white men. It is important to note that constitutional rights were given to different groups of Americans at different times: White woman were granted freedom of religion more or less in the same degree as white men from the beginning of the country, for example, while blacks were still enslaved.

By the middle of the 19th century, and as a part of the West that was in key cultural ways remote from the slave institutions of the South, Nevadans decided from the initiation of statehood to bar slavery from its territory. This too is set forth in the Ordinance: "That there shall be in this state neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment for crimes, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted."