We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Feds!
1861: The Slave States
Paul A. Thomsen
In 1861, the southern states took a bold step in declaring their independence from the United States. Like their American Revolutionary War ancestors, they were independent-minded, rooted in an agrarian tradition of slave economics, and distrusting of the often heavy-handed policies of higher authorities. They wanted supreme state sovereignty, weak presidents, and the continued endurance of slavery as a southern institution. Fearing for their safety, eleven southern states formed a new nation, called the Confederate States of America (CSA). By modifying the United States Constitution to their new southern designs, these new Rebels also hoped to protect and coordinate their potential prosperity without jeopardizing the member states’ level of individuality. Yet in drafting their breakaway constitution, the southerners made a tragic mistake. By attempting to preserve state sovereignty at all costs, the CSA limited their leadership’s ability to fight the Civil War effectively.
The failed CSA government had deep roots. Throughout the early republican era, several southerners felt the executive branch was too large and too powerful. When industrialization took hold and cities arose in the North, many more feared the loss of the southern slave power’s grip on the House of Representatives. Moreover, well into the nineteenth century, southerner leaders such as John C. Calhoun frequently complained about the abusive taxes on southern exports, the political challenges to slavery, and alleged northern corruptive influences in Federal governance. In the 1830s, Jacksonian-era discussions over tariffs had rapidly devolved into posturing, name calling, charges of tyranny, and threats. In the late 1840s, the situation became still more heated in the antislavery/proslavery debates over the acquisition of vast territories won in the Mexican War and the modernizing of the West. Year after year, the South, however, saw few northerners willing to provide a redress of their grievances.
By the presidential election of 1860, most southerners had concluded that separation remained the only viable alternative to stagnation and the apparent impending delegitimization of their livelihood, their culture, and their representation in Federal governance. Following the tradition of their American Revolutionary War forefathers, the southern states moved to legitimize their new independence through the assembling of state conventions to vote on secession. In 1860, South Carolina, long considered the most radical southern state, was the first state to hold a convention and secede. Next, the states of the Deep South (Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi) followed suit. Finally, in mid-1861, the remaining five less solidly slave states (Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee) joined their brethren. With fears of attack from the North and a desire for mutually beneficial ties, in February 1861 the seceded southern states finally agreed to a loose confederated alliance called the Confederate States of America.
In March 1861, the new Confederate States of America created a permanent constitutional structure and expanded governance. Under their new constitution, each state was considered to be “acting in its sovereign and independent character.” The states, therefore, held the supreme authority over southern Federal action. The constitution also specifically allowed cabinet members to hold seats in the Confederate Congress simultaneously. In theory, these cabinet members in congress were supposed to assist the president in influencing and being influenced by the legislative tide. Likewise, to offset the powers delegated to congress, the new constitution stipulated that the president, elected to office by congress for a single term of six years, was granted the ability to edit approved bills by line-item veto. As a check against potential abuses from both branches, the framers also followed the U.S. constitutional tradition of a judiciary and incorporated the Bill of Rights into the main body of the new social contract. Finally, the Confederate founders cemented slavery both as an immutable component of the economy and as a factor in calculating populace and congressional representation.
For the southerners, the Confederate constitution seemed like a good idea at the time, but their powerful desire to maintain an independent statist posture created a fundamental conflict between theory and the practical ability of a wartime government. In fact, most of the Confederacy’s problems originated in three major areas: the practical application of state supremacy in congress, the consequentially limited purview of presidential power, and the corresponding political quagmire of defense policies.
First, in attempting to apply the lessons of the recent past to their present situation, the southern founders created the Confederate Congress to ensure the supremacy and voting equality of each southern state. But their focus on the state discouraged member states from engaging in the life blood of politics: compromise. In fact, by law, congressmen were not allowed to promote businesses for fear of being considered corrupt and impeached. Instead, constitutional law encouraged individual congressmen to restrict their deal making solely to the precise wishes of their constituents. Moreover, as a collective body, a clear two-thirds majority was needed to pass congressional legislation. Consequently, in 1862, the Confederate Congress actively resisted the prospect of taxation and state-based tariffs regardless of wartime need and were forbidden to compromise or engage in deal making to resolve the situation. As a result, Confederate congressmen were forced either to beg their constituents for “gifts” of money and war supplies or to print reams of currency to keep the South in business at the cost of a devalued currency.
Second, the president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, was likewise caught between the proverbial rock and hard place. While the primary duty of the presidency was to execute congressionally sanctioned laws, the inability of congress to meet war needs compelled Davis to court a fine constitutional line in the service of the Confederacy. At times, he played diplomat to the southern states in the hope that his rebel presidential prestige might coax some southern support for the war effort. On other occasions, Jefferson Davis was forced to abandon all hope of influencing congress with shrewdly chosen appointees in favor of a less wholesome approach. Due to congress’s inability to provide a sustainable revenue stream of supplies and goods, Davis, for example, relegated a candidate’s personal abilities a distant second priority to a cabinet member’s state’s socioeconomic prowess as a near prerequisite for cabinet membership.
The Confederacy’s diffusion of the president’s ability to defend the South was another problem. Unable to now trust his cabinet to advise and effectively administer their departments, Davis by 1863 was forced to shift much of the war’s management from the congressionally created military offices into the southern executive mansion. By 1864, Davis was also regularly forced to subvert political will and the Confederate legal system to meet the practicalities of keeping experienced men and supplies on the front lines. He returned court-martialed veterans and deserters to combat status. He shepherded southern war production industries and, likewise, bypassed congress to deal directly with state governors over urgent interstate issues. As a result, by 1865, the Confederate circumstances had created in Jefferson Davis what most had initially feared in Lincoln—a one-man government.
Third, while the confederated alliance was initially created to protect the southern states, the Confederate version made little provision for the creation of a formal defense structure. The slow peacetime growth of a personally armed militia force into a small volunteer professional army over decades had worked reasonably well for the United States, but, as in other areas, the Confederacy had no time to grow. They needed an instant military with a military structure to vet a command staff, the ability to equip a force, and a plan to defeat a well-resourced military power like the Union Army—and they needed one yesterday.
Again facing limited options, the Confederacy adopted a loose militia structure and a locally raised and almost independently managed collection of armies to challenge the North. In the 1861 Battle of Fort Sumter, several ragtag bands of southern volunteers served as the first line of defense. Later, at First Bull Run, a slightly more organized collection of Confederate militia forces was barely able to deploy effectively its personal weapons and a limited cache of liberated Federal weapons to beat back the first Union action on southern land. As a result, more seasoned officers, such as P.G.T. Beauregard and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, were forced to compensate for their army’s many shortcomings against a superior foe with tactical surprises, battlefield flexibility, and steadfast resolve. In fact, their only assets were southern morale, a mass of civilian volunteers, and a dedicated cadre of experienced command-level officers.
Again, the southern government’s efforts at war making were also mired in bureaucratic problems. In February 1862, the Confederate Congress finally responded to the needs of the military for formal validation and a formal operating system. In the CSA congress’s twenty-first legislated act, it sanctioned the creation of a munitions department. There were, however, only a small number of seized Union cannons in their possession, and states often refused to remove them from their homeland defense. In their twenty-sixth act, the congress united the states’ militias under a single war department. The department, however, was mired in heavy bureaucracy and political infighting, leaving some of the most capable officers, such as Robert E. Lee, behind desks and causing the fielding of less capable officers. In its fifty-second legislated act, congress finally recognized the creation of both the Confederate Army and Navy. Yet, as most states ran their own defenses and local heroes largely fielded their own armies, the recognition added little to the Confederacy’s defense. As a result, Davis spent most of his time plugging holes in a heavily leaking, congressionally mandated system.
The creation of a confederate constitution based on individual powers of states and limited governance was nice in theory, but on paper and in wartime, the legislative act became an enemy greater than the adversary that had prompted its creation. The uncompromising Confederate Congress effectively robbed the rebel nation of structure and vitality. Similarly, while their usurper president did manage to offset the legislature’s initial shortfalls, Jefferson Davis’s own acts effectively forfeited the state-run and corruption-free independent government the southern founders had designed. Only the sheer willpower of the Confederate soldiers and sailors enabled the South’s poor national defense structure to stave off the effects of entropy, which seemed to destroy everything else within the Confederate States of America.
By 1865, not even the dream of a southern slave Confederacy could long hold the rebel states together. The Confederate economy was bankrupt. Their laws went unenforced. The surviving unoccupied states had reverted entirely to autonomous rule and only grim determination kept the army together. Where state sovereignty and fiery spirits of individualism had once propelled the South into revolutionary action, the governmental system and constitutional framework they had created now made the southern dream of freedom impossible and their defeat inevitable.