The Debates at the 1818 Constitutional Convention and Their Relevance Today

This fall, the CMCH is partnering with UCONN Law School to offer a lecture series, The Constitution of 1818: Debate and Dissent in the Land of Steady Habits, to mark the 200^th anniversary of the creation of Connecticut’s 1818 state Constitution.

Connecticut’s nickname is the “Constitution State”, but in fact it was almost the last state in the early republic to change its colonial charter to a constitution. Why? This lecture series will examine the ways in which the Constitution of 1818 grew out of a specific historical context: local, national, and international. The speakers will pay special attention to the many ways in which political debates in the past still resonate today.

In the third and final lecture in this series, CMCH welcomes Attorney Wesley Horton to speak to the following questions: How did the framers of the 1818 Constitution grapple with the issue of individual rights? What effect did that have on civil liberties in Connecticut, and how did that compare with other states and the federal government?

The event is FREE and open to the public, but please RSVP  at rsvp@chs.org or by calling 860-236-5621 ext. 238.

About the Speaker

Attorney Wesley Horton is a Partner at Horton Dowd Bartschi & Levesque PC. He is one of Connecticut’s premier appellate attorneys. Among his most notable cases are Horton v. Meskill, Sheff v. O’Neill, and Kelo v. New London.  Attorney Horton’s interest in legal history and state history is reflected in a variety of published work, including The History of the Connecticut Supreme Court (2008), The Connecticut State Constitution (2012), and “Annotated Debates of the 1818 Constitutional Convention,” 65 Conn. Bar Journal SI-1 (1991). Attorney Horton has served as President of the Connecticut Supreme Court Historical Society since 2005.

Support for the 1818 Constitution Lecture Series comes from Connecticut Humanities.