The Journal of American Constitutional History

Richard Primus

I'm proud and excited to be part of the launch of a new journal, called the Journal of American Constitutional History.  A number of Balkinization bloggers are editors of the journal, including Mary Dudziak, Mark Graber, Sandy Levinson, Gerard Magliocca, John Mikhail, and Mark Tushnet.  You can read more about the journal at its website, which is here.  Please find the first Call for Papers below.

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Journal of American Constitutional History

Call for Papers

You are cordially invited to submit articles to the Journal of American Constitutional History, a new online peer-reviewed journal. At a time when law office history is increasingly casting its shadow over both scholarship and jurisprudence, the Journal of American Constitutional History will offer a space for scholarship that tries to understand the past, rather than to distort it to influence present controversies.

The Journal seeks to promote inter- and multi-disciplinary scholarly dialogue on constitutional history, and we therefore invite submissions from disciplines outside of law, including history and political science. The Journal will publish articles of all lengths, from shorter essays and thought-pieces in the 4,000-to-6,000-word range to longer, traditional articles. Authors will be able to conform to the norms and citation styles of their respective fields.

Why this journal?

The Journal of American Constitutional History offers a serious alternative to student-edited law reviews and the constraining expectations of student editors. Authors will not need to erect elaborate scaffolding that shows some present-day “doctrinal payoff.” Nor will authors have to devote thousands of words to well-known background material, unnecessary footnotes, or literature reviews.

The Journal offers much faster publication decisions and time-to-publication than most peer-reviewed journals. Authors can expect to receive first-level decisions within a week of submission, and articles submitted for double-blind peer review will receive a decision within 3-4 weeks. Each author will receive written feedback explaining our publication decision. Articles will be published via the Journal website as soon they are completed rather than awaiting compilation of a full issue. Each article will be assigned a unique page range for citation purposes, and published articles will be carried by Hein Online and other searchable electronic databases.

The Journal’s Board of Editors comprises leading scholars in the field of constitutional history. (Please see listing on reverse page.) Authors can thus be assured of reaching their target audience from a distinguished platform and need not associate “prestige” with killing trees.

To submit articles, please visit our website, https://jach.law.wisc.edu, starting December 1, 2022. For questions, please contact the Journal’s editor-in-chief, David Schwartz, at

editor-jach@law.wisc.edu.