Commander's Column: The Confederate Constitution
Addressing State Sovereignty and Burueacracy
Mark Levin,
whose somewhat conservative but abrasive and anti-Confederate voice I have
bemoaned before, recently wrote that he believes our nation is in a
constitutional crisis because of the growth of the federal bureaucracy. In an interview he “discussed the wave of
activism and politics in the United States that is running counter to the
Constitution (saying), “We are at a precipice now. The cause is nothing less than saving this
republic.” Levin said the bureaucratic
state and forces of progressivism are misreading the Constitution. Levin mentioned how there are Articles I, II
and III in the founding document - laying out the roles of each of the three
branches of government but that "someone forgot to put the extra Article
in for the bureaucracy."”
(http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/24/mark-levin-cpac-speech-constitutional-danger-praises-donald-trump) This is the “deep state” Trump has exposed.
Levin and many neo-conservatives of Yankee ilk seem to turn a blind eye to the
constitutional crisis that led to the Southern states secession and attempt to
form a Confederate States of America.
Just as these founders of the CSA initially sought to retain the look of
the Revolutionary U.S. flag as they loved their mother country from an
originalist perspective, they sought to emulate much of the U.S. Constitution
while clarifying and strengthening the issues of state sovereignty and limiting
the federal bureaucracy. These Southern
patriots certainly believed in the Declaration of Independence from 85 years
prior which stated, “When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal
station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes
which impel them to the separation.” So,
in Montgomery in their own constitutional convention they shaped the
Confederate Constitution to address their grievances with the
Republican-controlled U.S. federal government.
Wikipedia has a
good article which provides a (seemingly objective) comparison of the U.S. and
Confederate constitutions. In regard to
most articles of the (Confederate) Constitution, the document is a
word-for-word duplicate of the United States Constitution. Regarding the reinforcement of state
sovereignty though one difference is the Confederate constitution
stating/clarifying, “Each State Legislature is free to make their own decisions
except where the Constitution has laid out other rules. The Preamble to the Confederate Constitution begins,
"We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its
sovereign and independent character” and the Confederate States gained several
rights that the U.S. states did not have. For example, they gained the right to
“impeach federal judges and other federal officers if they worked or lived
solely in their state.” But some
state’s rights were restricted, “States lose the ability to restrict the rights
of traveling and sojourning slave owners.
No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State, except
by a vote of two-thirds” of the CS legislature.
Additionally, the Confederate President must be a resident of the
geographical limits of the CSA for at least 14 years and would have a six year
term and would have line item veto authority.
The other issue
driving the Southern secession was Lincoln’s tariffs and appropriation of this
revenue to build Northern industrialism.
In this regard, the Confederate constitution stated/clarified, “(No)
duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or
foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be
uniform throughout the Confederate States.” No aids to interstate commerce
adding to the US constitution, “nor any other clause contained in the
constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the power to Congress to
appropriate money for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce;
except for the purpose of furnishing lights, beacons, and buoys, and other aids
to navigation.” Bills allocating expenditures had to specify an exact amount
with no eligible additional payments.
Each bill would have just one subject. The CSA Congress would have
limited “ability to tax ships and negotiate treaties concerning water
ways”. Limitations on federal overreach
and growth of the centralized bureaucracy.
Some additional
differences included the provision that “no state shall be sued by a citizen or
subject of any foreign state.” A 2/3
vote in the legislature was required for constitutional amendments and for
adding states. The CS Constitution
mentioned African slavery by name instead of using the term “Person[s] held to
Service or Labor” and while both prohibited African slave trade, the CS constitution
permitted slave trade with the US while indicating the CS Congress may prohibit
same. One of the final recognized causes
for the Southern state’s secession involved the determination of the western
states and “the Confederate Constitution added a clause about the question of
slavery in the territories (the key Constitutional debate of the 1860 election)
by explicitly stating that slavery (would be) legally protected in the
territories.”
Clearly, the
Confederate Constitution and the differences between it and the U.S.
Constitution after which it was closely patterned reinforce the complexity of
the numerous issues which caused the great divide between the Northern
Republican interests and those of the Southern Democrats. It was certainly not a single issue which
precipitated the secession and hostilities as is evident by a comparison in the
constitutions. The Confederacy sought to preserve the founder’s originalist
sovereignty of the states and limit the overreach and bureaucracy of the
central federal government. Levin
refuses to accept and acknowledge this historical truth as it does not serve
his mainstream politically correct agenda and threatens the lining of his
pockets with advertising dollars.
