North Carolina’s 1776 Constitution grew out of two crises: an east-west power struggle that erupted into the War of the Regulation, and a fight for political representation against an increasingly hostile English government. This lecture traces that story back to the religious and political conflicts of 17th-century Britain, through the migrations and economic pressures that shaped colonial North Carolina, to the document that remains the state’s constitutional foundation today. 

The lecture is presented by an interdisciplinary team from Carolina Law, the History Department and the University Library. 

This event is free and open to the public.

Speakers: Charles Plambeck, Adjunct Professor of Law, and Dr. Kathleen DuVal, Carl W. Ernst Distinguished Professor of History 

About the speakers:

Charles T. Plambeck researches North Carolina legal history, especially the Constitution of 1776. His most recent publication, The Constitutional History of the North Carolina Free Elections Clause, 103 N.C. L. Rev. 1143 (2025), traces the Free Elections Clause from its origins in 1275 through to the present day. He is Of Counsel at Caplin & Drysdale and an Adjunct Professor in international taxation at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Dr. Kathleen DuVal is the Carl W. Ernst Distinguished Professor of History at UNC-Chapel Hill. She specializes in early American and Native American history, with a focus on how Indigenous, European and African peoples interacted across North America from the 16th through early 19th centuries. Her 2024 book, Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, won the Pulitzer Prize in History, the Bancroft Prize, the Cundill History Prize and the Mark Lynton History Prize. She is also the author of Independence Lost: Lives on the Edge of the American Revolution and The Native Ground: Indians and Colonists in the Heart of the Continent.