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.
Was reading a new book, Dixie Betrayed: How The South Really Lost The Civil War, by David J. Eicher, when I came across the following in Chapter 11, Jockying For Position, pages 158-159:
"Meanwhile, an even greater shocker rose to the floor of the Senate. On February 5 [1863], the Senate heard a proposed amendment to the Confederate Constitution that would allow an aggrieved state to secede from the Confederacy. "It shall do so in peace," read the proposal, "but shall be entitled to its pro rata share of property and be liable for its pro rata share of public debt to be determined by negotiation." The idea was referred to the Judicial Committee. Two days later senators failed to recommend the amendment, and the whole thing was dropped as a dangerous idea."
The source given for the above was listed in the book "As quoted in Southern Historical Society Papers, 48: 60, 80."
Comments anyone?
Sincerely,
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
Was reading a new book, Dixie Betrayed: How The South Really Lost The Civil War, by David J. Eicher, when I came across the following in Chapter 11, Jockying For Position, pages 158-159:
"Meanwhile, an even greater shocker rose to the floor of the Senate. On February 5 [1863], the Senate heard a proposed amendment to the Confederate Constitution that would allow an aggrieved state to secede from the Confederacy. "It shall do so in peace," read the proposal, "but shall be entitled to its pro rata share of property and be liable for its pro rata share of public debt to be determined by negotiation." The idea was referred to the Judicial Committee. Two days later senators failed to recommend the amendment, and the whole thing was dropped as a dangerous idea."
The source given for the above was listed in the book "As quoted in Southern Historical Society Papers, 48: 60, 80."
Comments anyone?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
The books I have by Eicher seem well-done and reliable; I'd suppose this might be as well.
I've never heard of this particular incident and can't say anything about the accuracy of it. However, "Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander." It seems to me the Confederacy consistently felt those who disagreed internally with Confederate policy should be denied the right to leave.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
First of all, thanks for finding it and presenting it plainly, as always, without first tarring it with personal editorial. I appreciate that.
Had the CSA congress embraced the amendment with three cheers and tacked it on their constitution, it still would not apply if one of their states seized CSA properties and assets, and committed acts of war against the CSA. "It shall do so in peace" implies an obligation on the seceding state as well as the federal government.
But, they didn't embrace it with three cheers, and that's what of course is more interesting. So much for the "loose compact of sovereign states" rhetoric.
I suppose there is room here for a possible argument, a really weak argument, that the reason the Judicial Committee tuned it down might be similar to federalist arguments with regards to the US Constitution that "Bill of Rights" amendments are not necessary to protect an action which the constitution did not empower the federal government to prohibit in the first place. But in relation to a federal constitution, that is not a states right argument, and in the face of what the CSA is in the midst of in 1863, it seems pretty nonsensical to think that they would turn their noses up on an amendment that says explicitly what they would come to claim the US Constitution said implicitly. So, talking the talk is not the same as walking the walk.
A more "real world" explanation for the turn-down might be that they found it a "dangerous idea" to write into the constitution the instructions for their destruction. I happen to be of the school that thinks there is a legitimate interest, a national interest, in the exiting of states that is every bit as reasonable as their interest in the entering of them. A body who thinks it is just a loose compact of individual organs will find itself in deep doo doo when the liver decides it wants to leave. Maybe some of the CSA senators belonged to the same school.
Cedarstripper
Last edited by cedarstripper : 04-18-2008 at 04:48 PM.
No mattern how one slices' it, the CSA constitution is no more explicit, concerning the existence of 'A' Right of secession, much less how secession could be accomplished legally or peacefully than the original Constitution.
To me, considering what came of leaving the existence and mechanics of secession a matter of inference, of the Old Constitution, I wonder at the intelligence of the confederate lawmakers that they did the same in their own document.
"[i]t was proposed that the new [Confederate] Constitution explicitly recognize the right of secession, but the idea was dropped after others suggested that 'its inclusion would discredit the claim that the right had been inherent under the old government.' [Wilfred B.] Yearns, [The Confederate Congress (1960)], at 29; see also [Charles Robert] Lee [Jr., The Confederate Constitutions (1963)], at 101-02 (citing the relevant portions of the Journal and arguing that the right to secede was 'implied in the specific phraseology of the Preamble,' which in what seems to me a less than conclusive manner declared that the Constitution was the work of 'the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character' . . .)."
David P. Currie, Through the Looking Glass: The Confederate Constitution in Congress, 1861 - 1865, fn. 39.
So, should I change the title of this thread to read;
"The CSA Constitution did permit secession"
by implication?
Sincerely,
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
The states under the old Constitution all had an independent and sovereign character, just not a right to right to unilateral secession. As I am sure any confederate state would have learned, if they tried to leave the confederacy, if the south had won the war.
Since I expect a national referendum on secession was not likely or even possible and certainly there were no CNN poles to rely on, then the soon to be Confederate states did the next best thing. A vote of the people. It took several rounds to accomplish the somewhat managed goal, but the various states could only operate within their boundaries. The peaceful part obviously turned into a brawl. With a Confederate military victory, there would have been no secession, only organization of a new government? Thank Divine Providence that didn't happen.
__________________
Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Of course, the Confederate Constitution never mentioned the right of a state to secede.
In fact, the Confederate Constitution overrode any "sovereign right" to ban slavery in their individual state, due to the provisions that all Confederate citizens had the right to bring their slaves to any part of the Confederacy.
The implication of the Confederate Constitution is that if secession were legal, the constitution provision concerning slavery could be potentially voided by that state.
No Confederate state was given that right to void slavery. One must conclude that this agreement precludes ever leaving the Confederacy. Otherwise the right to own slaves is limit, and not so stated in that Constitution.
All Confederate states agreed that, "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States, and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in such slaves shall not be impaired."
Every examination of the Confederate Constitution I've read whitworth is that the preamble was a nod to the states that they could leave if they did so peacefully.
I don't read that as hypocritical at all.
As for slaves travelling into other states still being property- the North had the same laws!
The two parts of the Confederate Constitution I find interesting are the term limits and line item veto parts, which turn out to have been very far sighted.
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CSA Constitution did not permit secession. 
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