Confederate States Constitution

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The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was the supreme law of the Confederate States of America, as adopted on March 11, 1861 and in effect through the conclusion of the American Civil War. The Confederacy also operated under a Provisional Constitution from February 8, 1861 to March 11, 1861. The original, hand-written document is currently located in the University of Georgia archives at Athens, Georgia.

In regard to most articles of the Constitution, the document is a word-for-word duplicate of the United States Constitution. The major differences between the two constitutions was the Confederacy's greater emphasis on the rights of individual member states, and an explicit support of slavery.

Contents 1 Branches 2 Slavery 3 Changes from U.S. constitution 4 States' rights 5 Signatories 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Branches

The constitution outlines a three branch government, consisting of the:

• Congress of the Confederate States, consisting of an elected House of Representatives and a Senate appointed by the state legislatures.
• President of the Confederate States and Vice President chosen by an electoral college and given one six year term.
• Supreme Court nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. While the Constitution established the Supreme Court as head of the judicial branch, no justices were ever appointed, for fear that the Supreme Court would wield too much power over the states.^[1].

[edit] Slavery

The constitution forbade the practice of importing slaves from outside the Confederacy, but disallowed the national government from outlawing slavery in the following key provision:

No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed [by Congress]

The constitution likewise prohibited the Confederate Congress from abolishing or limiting slavery in Confederate territories (unlike the United States, where, prior to the Dred Scott decision, Congress had prohibited slavery in some territories). The legal basis for slavery in the Confederacy is largely presented as an extension of property rights.

A proposal to prohibit free states from joining the Confederate States of America was narrowly defeated, largely due to the efforts of moderates such as Alexander Stephens. Stephens reasoned that economics might persuade free states with strong economic ties to the South to join the Confederacy.

[edit] Changes from U.S. constitution

• The President was elected for a single six-year term, rather than an unlimited (at that time) number of four-year terms or a maximum of two four-year terms (today).
• The following provisions were added to the original text of Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States;
  • Amended Article 1 Sec. 1 Clause 1 to prohibit persons "of foreign birth" who were "not a citizen of the Confederate States" from voting "for any officer, civil or political, State or Federal."^[2] While some would argue that amendment is the result of the lingering influence of the Nativist theology advance by the Know-Nothing Party further research would suggest it is simply an attempt to install a safety mechanism within the new government that would prevent U.S. citizens from moving into the Confederacy and installing pro-union or anti-slavery representatives into the new nations government, a practice already established and utilized by anti-slavery forces during their efforts to prevent the spread of slavery into Kansas, a series of events referred to as Bleeding Kansas. While Article 2 Sec. 1 Cl. 7 of the Confederate Constitution provides citizenship to people "born in the United States prior to the 20th of December, 1860" it also requires candidates for the President of the Confederacy to have resided "within the limits of the Confederate States" for 14 years^[3]. While these restrictions allow for the growth of the Confederacy, by offering citizenship to the population of any state which joins the Confederacy it also insures that citizens of the now foreign nation of the United States could not simply move into member states of the Confederacy and gain citizenship and voting privileges. It may seem odd to label U.S. citizens as foreign born, but upon the creation of the Confederate States of America the states remaining in the Union and therefore members of the union of states known as the United States would have been a wholly separate and foreign nation, and most likely a hostile nation at that.
  • Amended Article 1 Section 2 Clause 5 to allow the state legislatures to impeach federal officials who live and work only within their state with 2/3 vote in both houses of the state legislature.
  • Amended Article 1 Section 6 Clause 2 to allow the House of Representatives and Senate the ability to grant seats to the heads of each Executive Department, or the Presidential Cabinet, in order to discuss issues involving their departments with Congress.
  • Amended Article 1 Section 7 Clause 2 to provide the President of the Confederate States of America with a line item veto but also required any bill which the president used the veto in to be resubmitted to both houses for a possible override vote by 2/3 of both houses.
• The first twelve amendments to the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, were directly incorporated into the Confederate Constitution. This was originally suggested by James Madison for the Bill of Rights in the time after the Constitution Convention, but he was defeated.
• There were several minor technical changes in the text adopted from the U.S. Constitution. Each clause within a section was numbered, whereas in the U.S. constitution clause numbers were only inferred, capitalization of nouns was closer to modern usage, and "Confederate States" was substituted for "United States" wherever necessary.
• The preamble maintained the structure of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution with several distinctions. The Confederate preamble added the words "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character" after "We the people of the Confederate States"; substituted "permanent federal government" for "more perfect Union"; deleted the phrases referring to providing for the "common defence" and "general welfare"; and inserted the words "invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God".
• Despite some opposition, the international slave trade was banned in the Confederacy, as it had been in the U.S. since 1808. Delegates feared that European governments would not recognize a CSA that did not prohibit the international trade. The international slave trade was distasteful to many slaveowners. Prohibition of foreign slave trade also protected the substantial domestic slave trade in Virginia and Maryland, who had yet to join the CSA.
• Confederate officials serving within a state could be impeached by the legislature of that state, as well as by the Confederate Congress.
• The phrase "to promote or foster any branch of industry" was added to the "tax uniformity clause" in Article I, Section 8(1) to stress the opposition of the Confederacy to non-uniform tariffs such as the Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations.
• The process of amendment became easier, requiring two-thirds of the states rather than three-fourths.
• A bill, or any resolution carrying the force of law, could only deal with a single subject, which had to be stated in the title.
• If there was a vacancy in the House of Representatives, the governor of the state represented could fill the vacancy. He could do so for a Senate vacancy only during the recess of the legislature, and only for a term until the legislature met and made its own choice.

[edit] States' rights

The Preamble to the Confederate Constitution begins: "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character..."

The Confederate Constitution contains little evidence of an agenda to advance the cause of states' rights.^[4] The constitution contained many of the phrases and clauses which had led to disagreement among the states in the original Union, including a Supremacy Clause, a Commerce Clause (albeit a more restrained version than in the U.S. Constitution, which itself had not been construed nearly as broadly as it is today), and a Necessary and Proper Clause. By these clauses, the Confederate Congress had powers almost identical to those of the U.S. Congress. The Confederate Constitution contained clauses which increased the powers of the Executive Branch, such as the line item veto power given to the president. The Confederate Constitution also provided for a Supreme Court, which, through the supremacy clause, could acquire all the powers claimed for the U.S. Supreme Court by John Marshall. The Confederate Constitution was to take effect upon ratification by five states, like the U.S. Constitution, which took effect after nine states ratified it. This had been a major point of contention in the Anti-Federalist Papers. The framers of the Confederate Constitution, having studied the various constitutional crises which had arisen in the United States between 1787 and 1860, tried to revise the constitution to eliminate the grievances which had been raised by the southern States in that period, in particular by hedging the institution of slavery with Constitutional protections. Ultimately, no clause was placed in the Confederate constitution explicitly saying that a State had the right to secede from the Confederacy, or outlining procedures for secession under those conditions where a State might want it.

[edit] Signatories

The signatories of the constitution were:

• Howell Cobb, President of the Congress.
• South Carolina: Robert Barnwell Rhett, C. G. Memminger, William Porcher Miles, James Chesnut, Jr., R. W. Barnwell, William W. Boyce, Lawrence M. Keitt, T. J. Withers.
• Georgia: Francis S. Bartow, Martin J. Crawford, Benjamin H. Hill, Thomas R. R. Cobb.
• Florida: Jackson Morton, J. Patton Anderson, Jas. B. Owens.
• Alabama: Richard W. Walker, Robert H. Smith, Colin J. McRae, William P. Chilton, Stephen F. Hale, David P. Lewis, Thomas Fearn, John Gill Shorter, J. L. M. Curry.
• Mississippi: Alex. M. Clayton, James T. Harrison, William S. Barry, W. S. Wilson, Walker Brooke, W. P. Harris, J. A. P. Campbell.
• Louisiana: Alex. de Clouet, C. M. Conrad, Duncan F. Kenner, Henry Marshall.
• Texas: John Hemphill, Thomas N. Waul, John H. Reagan, Williamson S. Oldham, Louis T. Wigfall, John Gregg, William Beck Ochiltree.
• Missouri: Edward Davidson, Johnny J. Davis, Jr.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Text of the constitution
• Study on the differences between the United States and Confederate States Constitutions
• The Confederate Constitution, by Randall G. Holcombe A libertarian study of the Confederate Constitution.