Constitution of the Confederate States

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The Constitution of the Confederate States laid down the basic political order of the Confederate States of America . It was itself passed on March 11, 1861 , replacing a provisional constitution passed on February 8, 1861. The constitution remained in force from March 1861 until the defeat of the Confederation in the Civil War in 1865.

The text of the Constitution is largely duplicated from the United States Constitution, including the twelve amendments passed prior to 1861 that were incorporated into the main text of the Constitution. There are significant differences between the two constitutional texts with regard to the perception of slavery , the rights of the member states and parliamentary budget and taxation controls.

Slavery was explicitly removed from the control of the central government and left to the individual states to regulate; only the importation of new slaves from abroad remained forbidden, as had been the case in the USA since 1808, since the associated raids in Africa and the many deaths on the transport ships no longer had many supporters, even in the south. If the slave transports had been resumed, countermeasures by England and France would also have been feared. A planned provision, according to which every state had to allow slavery, narrowly failed, as it was hoped that some northern states could eventually join the confederation for economic reasons. However, the existence of slavery was guaranteed by the constitution in all territories not belonging to any state and in all states to be newly established in the future, as was the repatriation of slaves who fled to slave-free states. While the slaves were euphemistically referred to as other persons in the US Constitution , they are now explicitly referred to as slaves in the Confederate States Constitution .

Violence

The Confederate Constitution provides for a three-way division of state power : The legislature was formed by the Congress of the Confederate States of America . This bicameral parliament was divided into the Confederate House of Representatives, to which each state sent delegates based on their population, and the Confederate Senate, in which each state was represented by two senators. As before, these were elected for terms of two and six years respectively. In contrast to the northern states, elections took place in the odd years; only two were actually held, in 1861 and 1863, as the confederation no longer existed by the planned election date in 1865. Another important difference to the North in constitutional practice was that no political parties emerged in the Confederation during its existence and the candidates therefore all ran as individual personalities. The US Constitution also does not explicitly mention parties anywhere. In contrast to the US Constitution, omnibus laws were forbidden; each law could only relate to one matter.

The President of the Confederate States and his Vice-President were elected by electors , but for six years instead of four as in the Union . On the other hand, re-election was excluded. Only one presidential election actually took place; the presidential candidate Jefferson Davis and his runner-up Alexander Stephens obtained all electoral votes in 1861 and held office until the collapse of the Confederation. The President could veto not only laws as a whole, but also individual provisions. Together with the ban on omnibus laws, this meant the elimination of the possibility under the US Constitution to force the president to sign a provision that he did not want by converting one of the laws he wanted and considered more important to another Topic is inserted.

The constitution provided for a Supreme Court as the highest instance of the judiciary . For this, however, no judges were appointed during the existence of the confederation, as the political leadership of the southern states feared that the state would be judiciary.

Constitutional amendments

In contrast to the US Constitution, constitutional changes were not possible through a resolution of Congress with a two-thirds majority, but only through the convening of a new constituent assembly at the request of at least three individual states. The amendments adopted by a majority there then had to be approved by two thirds of the individual states (instead of three quarters in the Union) before they could come into force. There were no constitutional changes during the existence of the confederation.

Web links

Wikisource: Text of the constitution of March 11, 1861  - sources and full texts (English)
Wikisource: Text of the provisional constitution of February 8, 1861  - sources and full texts (English)