Abstract
The Wisconsin Constitution was a document prepared in a hurry. The fall 1848 national election was expected to be a referendum on the spread of slavery and the only way for residents of the Wisconsin Territory to vote in the national election was for Wisconsin to become a state. In order to become a state, however, Wisconsin first needed a constitution. For forty days in late December 1847 and January 1848, a constitutional convention met in Madison. Using the 1840s equivalent, delegates “cut and pasted” whole sections from the constitutions of New York and Michigan, as well as from an 1846 Wisconsin version rejected by the territory’s voters.
Repository Citation
Steven M. Biskupic,
On the 175th Anniversary of the Wisconsin Constitution: An Examination of the Early Court “Repairs” of a Rushed Document,
107 Marq. L. Rev. 1005
(2024).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol107/iss4/5