Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
Thank you. You saved me from having to plod through that dreary document again. Seems they had about the same regard for their constitution as they did for the original.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Since no one else has stepped up, the most commonly given reason was that the states didn't want a court system at the national level telling them what they could do. In 1863 the Confederate Congress considered the issue of nominating Supreme Court Justices, and the states objected, saying the individual state supreme courts should not be superceded by a national Supreme Court. Lower Confederate courts were established, but a state supreme court could overrule any of their decisions.
Trice is correct. The Confederate Judiciary Act (1861), modeled on the U.S. Judiciary Act, provided that the jurisdiction of the Confederate Supreme Court would include, among other things, the power to review state court judgments in what lawyers call "federal question" cases -- that is, cases in which federal (here Confederate) statutes or constitutional provisions are construed or are at issue. However, the Judiciary Act did not itself create a Supreme Court.
Passage of an act to create a Confederate Supreme Court was held up by objections (a) that there was no need for a supreme court, (b) that the power to review state court judgments was unconstitutional under the Confederate Constitution; and (c) that that power was objectionable because it "would subordinate the States to the Confederate Government."
The Confederate Senate ultimately passed a Supreme Court bill in 1863 after deleting review of state court judgments from the Supreme Court's jurisdiction. The Confederate House referred the Supreme Court bill to its Judiciary Committee, but the Committee took no action and the bill died there.
Professor David Currie, as usual, covers this topic in great detail:
David Currie: "Through the Looking-Glass: The Confederate Constitution in Congress", 90 Virginia Law Rev. 1257, 1366-1376 (2004), available online at:
"That is how it came to pass that members of the Confederate House of Representatives, in disregard of their oath to uphold the Constitution the states' own agents had adopted only two years before, refused to create a tribunal whose establishment Article III plainly required."
Which loopholes would those be, other than slavery?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
Are you unaware that the "promote the general welfare" phrase was omitted? If you are, I can not imagine that you do not understand why.
I have read through a source that highlights every single change that was made from the US to the Confederate Constitution. I am aware of each change, or can easily refresh my memory word by word.
Now please answer the question. Tells us *EXACTLY* what "loopholes" you think the Confederate Constitution plugged. Don't waste our time with silly rhetorical questions like the above designed to avoid answering. Put forth your own explanation, in detail, with your reasons in clear English. Or simply admit the weakness of your argument.
I have read through a source that highlights every single change that was made from the US to the Confederate Constitution. I am aware of each change, or can easily refresh my memory word by word.
Now please answer the question. Tells us *EXACTLY* what "loopholes" you think the Confederate Constitution plugged. Don't waste our time with silly rhetorical questions like the above designed to avoid answering. Put forth your own explanation, in detail, with your reasons in clear English. Or simply admit the weakness of your argument.
Regards,
Tim
Tim, I am glad you are aware of each change. So am I.
If you are aware of them, you will be aware that of the 35 (my count) 'significant' changes, 4 of them dealt with slavery. (Please review this thread in its early stages to see the discussion regarding the slavery changes.)
If you are not willing to share you understanding (or lack thereof) of the questions behind the closure of the "general welfare" phraseology, then I am in no mood to waste my time reading another "slavery, slavery, slavery, and then more slavery" lecture.
The "general welfare" omission was not a fleeting thought.
Tim, I am glad you are aware of each change. So am I.
If you are aware of them, you will be aware that of the 35 (my count) 'significant' changes, 4 of them dealt with slavery. (Please review this thread in its early stages to see the discussion regarding the slavery changes.)
If you are not willing to share you understanding (or lack thereof) of the questions behind the closure of the "general welfare" phraseology, then I am in no mood to waste my time reading another "slavery, slavery, slavery, and then more slavery" lecture.
The "general welfare" omission was not a fleeting thought.
Hal
Hal, sooner or later you have to actually explain what you mean in clear English. Give it a try. It won't hurt.
No change made was a "fleeting thought" in my view. But the confederates making a change does not apply there was a "loophole". You have claimed they were closing "loopholes" and I have simply asked you what you were referring to.
Or are you saying that everything they changed closed a "loophole"?
Hal, sooner or later you have to actually explain what you mean in clear English. Give it a try. It won't hurt.
No change made was a "fleeting thought" in my view. But the confederates making a change does not apply there was a "loophole". You have claimed they were closing "loopholes" and I have simply asked you what you were referring to.
Or are you saying that everything they changed closed a "loophole"?
Regards,
Tim
No, I am not.
But I am saying that many of the changes, if not the majority, sought to "close loopholes" or at least correct what they saw as problematic phrases etc., that had resulted in particular problems within the old union.
And I have started with one of the changes in the preamble -- the omission of "to promote the general welfare" -- and have labeled that (perhaps imperfectly) as a "loophole" closure, since that phrase had been used by proponents of expanding federal power to justify federal exercise of undelegated powers.
I have held out hope that you were familiar with why that change was made, and would be inclined to discuss those reasons.
You have never read for the call to reopen the slave trade at the Democratic National Convention in 1860? That you never knew that South Carolina called for the reopening of the slave trade?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wild_Rose
No, as I told Ole, I was not aware of that. I've just done a google search and it hasn't turned up any mention of reopening the slave trade in the 1860 Democratic Convention. I'll keep looking.
Regards,
Rose
Yes, Unionblue......Where is that?.....We're waiting...
Your fingers ain't broke. Search it out. It's there if you want to find it.
Democratic National Convention 1860, page 42, midway down the page: "Mr. Montgomery, of Pennsylvania, moved to lay Mr. Bigier's motion on the table. He did not regard as a compromise, a proposition for a Congressional slave code and the reopening of the African slave trade."
From the web site, Background of the Confederate States Constitution: "The Confederate Constitution also mirrored, but surpassed, the federal Constitution on the issue of the slave trade by absolutely forbidding the operation of the African slave trade. This was done over protestations of South Carolinians, who wanted the matter left to Congress. Prohibiting the trade was not an indication of antislavery sentiment but the result of the distaste for the African trade by some slave owners, fear of Africans themselves, and the fear that Europe would not recognize the Confederacy if it did not unequivocally prohibit the trade. Permitting the trade also might have discouraged Virginia and Maryland from entering the Confederacy because of the excess of slaves in those states. Those states might not have wanted foreign competition with their interstate slave trade."
But I see by the thread you started, Trice has more than answered the idea that there were those who wished to reopen the African Slave Trade.
I won't belabor the point, because it did happen, whether you wish to believe it or not.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Read the whole article as I think it answers a lot of the supposed improvements you seem to think the CSA constitution had.
I particularly liked the last paragraph.
"When the last Confederate army in the field, Joseph Johnston's ragged remnants in North Carolina, surrendered to U.S. General William Sherman, Jefferson Davis asked Confederate Attorney General George Davis' opinion on whether he should ratify the capitulation agreement.
Davis answered, "desperate circumstances override constitutional questions."
And that, said Currie, summarizes the history of Confederate constitutional interpretation.
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
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