North Carolina’s 1868 Constitution rebuilt the state after the Civil War, expanding political participation and redefining the relationship between government and citizens in the state’s first attempt at multiracial democracy. This lecture examines how that document laid the groundwork for principles that continue to shape North Carolina constitutional law, and what its lessons offer for constitutional debates still unresolved 250 years after the state’s founding. 

Speakers: Marcus Gadson, associate professor of law, and Harry L. Watson, Atlanta Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture 

About the Speakers:

Professor Marcus Gadson is an associate professor of law at UNC School of Law, joining the faculty in 2025. He teaches courses on State Constitutional Law, federal Constitutional Law, and civil procedure. He is one of the nation’s leading authorities on state constitutions and has published a book arguing that constitutional crises at the state level have profoundly shaped American constitutional law and co-authored a casebook about state constitutions. Before joining Carolina, Professor Gadson taught at Campbell University School of Law and practiced at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C. 

Professor Harry L. Watson is the Atlanta Distinguished Professor of Southern Culture at UNC-Chapel Hill. A native of Greensboro, he researches the political, social and intellectual history of the antebellum South and Jacksonian America, including the formation of political parties and the relationship between race and class under slavery. He directed the UNC Center for the Study of the American South from 1999 to 2012 and edited its journal, Southern Cultures, from 1993 to 2019. He is the author or editor of eight books, including Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America and Building the American Republic, Volume 1: A Narrative History to 1877. Watson holds a bachelor's from Brown University and a doctorate from Northwestern.