The
Confederate Constitution represented an important effort to better
incorporate sovereign State principles into the organic law, and repair
the failings of the original document. The Confederate preamble omitted
the “general welfare” clause “which had been used to add imperial
powers to the United States Constitution,” and it referred very
pointedly to sovereign and independent States.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
Creating a More Perfect Union
“Jabez
Curry was a deputy from Alabama to the Convention of the Seceded States
which met at Montgomery on February 4, 1861. [Jefferson] Davis said:
“The Constitution formed by our Fathers is that of the Confederate
States, in their exposition of it; and in the judicious construction it
has received we have a light which reveals its true meaning.”
Curry
participated in the creation of this fundamental document. He said the
Constitution was an object of veneration. Attachment to it was akin to
idolatry. Curry noted, with great pride, that the United States
Constitution was the work of Southern statesmen, adding that “the
Federal government, the creature of the Constitution, had been shaped
and administered for years, by Southern men.”
In
the deliberations to create a permanent Confederate Constitution, the
convention looked to the history of the United States to find the
weaknesses and failings of the original. Alexander Stephens said of the
men who put this new instrument together: “They were men of substance,
of solid character, or moral worth, versed in the principles and
practices of government, and some of them were amongst the first men of
the continent.”
Curry
emphatically claimed that the Confederacy was not dissatisfied with the
United States Constitution, only with its administration; and its
avowed purpose was to restore its integrity and secure its faithful
observance with a goal of taking away from the majority in Congress
unlimited power. He described how this was achieved:
“Every
possible infringement upon popular liberty, or upon State rights, every
oppressive or sectional use of the taxing power, was carefully guarded
against, and civil service reform was made easy and practicable.
Stubborn and corrupting controversies about tariffs, post offices,
improvements of rivers and harbors, subsidies, extra pay, were avoided.
The taxing power was placed under salutary restrictions.
Responsibility
was more clearly fixed. Money in the treasury was protected against
purchasable majorities and wicked combinations. Adequate powers for a
frugal and just administration were granted to the General Government.
The States maintained their autonomy, and were not reduced to petty
corporations, or counties, or dependencies.
The
study of the Confederate Constitution would be useful at present, as
there was never a time when the need for restrictions and guarantees
against irresponsible power was more urgent. The public mind has been
schooled against any assertion of State rights or of constitutional
limitations, and taught to look with aversion and ridicule upon any
serious attempt to set up the ancient landmarks.”
The
Provisional Constitution was no mere interim makeshift document. It
represented a serious effort to incorporate Southern State rights
principles into organic law.”
(Destroying the Republic, Jabez Curry and the Re-Education of the South, John Chodes, Algora Publishing, 2005, pp. 32-33)
