Maryland Constitution of 1851

The Maryland Constitution of 1851 was the second constitution of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean t ...

following the

revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...

, replacing the Constitution of 1776. The primary reason for the new constitution was a need to re-apportion Maryland's legislature, the

Maryland General Assembly The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber ...

. It also permitted a change in the status of the City of Baltimore (designated as a "port of entry" in 1706, chartered as a town in 1729, incorporated in 1796–97, and county seat since 1768) and its relationship with the surrounding

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City ...

(which was erected in 1659). By the provisions of this 1851 Constitution,

Baltimore City Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

was to be separated and given the status of the other (soon-to-be) 23 counties of the State, with a provision of "home rule", which was later extended in 1923. By 1854, Baltimore County by election of its voters had moved its county seat and courts to Towsontown, north of the city and began building a new

courthouse A courthouse or court house is a building that is home to a local court of law and often the regional county government as well, although this is not the case in some larger cities. The term is common in North America. In most other English-spe ...

. However, there were several critiques of the Constitution of 1851, especially in changes in how the judiciary functioned which allowed for gaps in judiciary oversight. These critiques led to the relatively rapid adoption of a new Constitution of 1864. 1851 in law Defunct state constitutions of the United States Maryland law Legal history of Maryland 1851 in Maryland {{US-gov-stub