The Constitution of the Confederate States of America, 1861

Abstract

The Confederate Constitution of 1861 has been an important development in American constitutional law. The Montgomery Convention that drafted the constitution chose not to create an entirely new document, but instead to copy and revise the United States Constitution of 1787. Nearly verbatim identity of most provisions of the two texts highlights the differences arising from deliberate alterations introduced by the Confederates. This article analyzes those changes in light of their political and legal background and classifies them into three broad categories: first, amendments designed to “restore” the balance of federal and state powers to the states’ rights ideal envisioned by Southern political leaders and to check further growth of federal authority; second, provisions designed to augment or clarify constitutional protections of slavery and thereby addressing the direct causes of secession; and third, governmental innovations mostly related to separation of powers and fiscal affairs (such as line-item veto, executive budget, or the single subject rule) that were not directly related to the major sectional controversies of the antebellum era, but instead addressed what the framers of the Confederate Constitution believed to be practical deficiencies of the 1787 Constitution. While the first two categories are of interest mainly to historians of the antebellum period, as embodying to a large extent the Southern view of the Constitution (though falling short of endorsing Calhounian ideas of nullification and concurrent majority), the last one also influenced many state constitutions adopted during and after the CivilWar, thereby permanently contributing to development of American constitutional tradition.