  We extend the confined covariant constituent quark model that was previously
developed by us for mesons to the baryon sector. In our numerical calculation
we use the same values for the constituent quark masses and the infrared cutoff
as have been previously used in the meson sector. In a first application we
describe the static properties of the proton and neutron, and the
$\Lambda$-hyperon (magnetic moments and charge radii) and the behavior of the
nucleon form factors at low momentum transfers. We discuss in some detail the
conservation of gauge invariance of the electromagnetic transition matrix
elements in the presence of a nonlocal coupling of the baryons to the three
constituent quark fields.
