Albert Constable

Albert Constable (June 3, 1805 – August 22, 1855) was a U.S. Democratic politician, lawyer, and judge from Maryland who served one term in the United States House of Representatives from 1845 to 1847. His congressional service took place during a significant period in American history, as he participated in the democratic process and represented the interests of his Maryland constituents in the national legislature.

Constable was born on June 3, 1805, near Charlestown in Cecil County, Maryland, the son of John Constable. He was raised on the family farm, an upbringing that rooted him in the rural life and local concerns of northeastern Maryland. Details of his early formal schooling are not extensively recorded, but his subsequent legal training indicates that he received sufficient preparatory education to pursue the study of law in the early nineteenth century.

Constable studied law in Chestertown, Maryland, in the office of Judge Ezekiel F. Chambers, a prominent jurist and later United States senator. Under Chambers’s tutelage, he read law in the traditional apprenticeship manner of the period and was admitted to the bar in 1829. His early legal career began shortly thereafter, as he established himself in practice and developed the professional reputation that would later support his entry into public life.

Following his admission to the bar, Constable first settled in Bel Air, the county seat of Harford County, where he practiced law. Seeking broader opportunities, he subsequently moved to Baltimore, then the principal commercial and legal center of the state, and continued his legal practice there. He later relocated to Perryville in Cecil County, maintaining his work as an attorney and becoming further connected with the communities he would eventually represent in public office.

A member of the Democratic Party, Constable was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Maryland and served in the Twenty-ninth Congress from March 4, 1845, to March 3, 1847. During this single term in Congress, he contributed to the legislative process at a time marked by debates over territorial expansion, economic policy, and sectional tensions. As a Democratic representative, he participated in the formulation of national policy while advocating for the interests and concerns of his Maryland constituents.

After leaving Congress, Constable remained active in state affairs. He was a member of the Maryland reform convention in 1850, a body convened to revise and modernize the state’s constitutional and governmental structures. His work in the convention reflected his continuing engagement with questions of legal and political reform. In 1851, he was appointed judge of the circuit court of Maryland, a position he held from 1851 until his death in 1855. As a circuit court judge, he presided over significant civil and criminal matters, applying his long legal experience to the administration of justice in the state.

In his personal life, Constable married Hannah Archer, a member of a prominent Maryland family and the sister of Henry W. Archer. Together they had four children: Isabel S., Albert, Johanna, and Alice. His son Albert followed him into the legal profession and public service, becoming both a lawyer and a member of the Maryland House of Delegates, thereby extending the family’s involvement in law and politics into the next generation.

Albert Constable died on August 22, 1855, in Camden, New Jersey, while still serving as a judge of the circuit court of Maryland. He was interred in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland, a resting place for many of the state’s notable figures. His career as lawyer, legislator, constitutional reformer, and judge reflected a lifetime of service to Maryland and to the broader legal and political institutions of his era.