A short history of the Confederate States of America/Introduction
The vindication of the Southern States for their Ordinances of Secession in 1861 involves two considerations, namely: their rightful power to withdraw from the Union into which they had entered by voluntary compact; and the causes that justified the exercise of that power.
In treating this question in its twofold aspect, the legal and the moral, it is not intended to vex the weary ear by adducing time-worn arguments; but, believing the case to be one which must be adjusted finally by historical facts, the candid reader is asked, without favor or prejudice, to make a decision on the unquestionable record.
The British Colonies of North America—subsequently the United States—had a common allegiance to the British Crown. Otherwise they were as distinct from one another as they were from Canada, Nova Scotia, and the American islands owned by Great Britain. When, by the violation of both charter and inalienable rights, for which neither redress nor security against repetition could be obtained, some of the colonies decided to sever their connection with the British Crown, they formed an alliance, declared themselves free and independent States, and, with their united strength, made such vigorous resistance to the efforts of the Mother Country to reduce them to subjection that, finally, a Treaty of Peace was made, in September, 1783, in the following words:
"article I. His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz.: New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut and New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to be free, sovereign, and independent States; that he treats with them as such," etc., etc.
It has been contended that, although the States were severally named, the recognition was to the Union, not merely as the negotiating agent, but as the supreme authority.
The fallacy of this assumption is shown by the provisions of Articles V. and VII., recognizing the separate, independent power of the respective States to provide for the restitution of all estates, rights, and properties which had been confiscated, belonging to real British subjects ; and also of the estates, rights, and properties of persons resident in districts in the possession of His Majesty's arms, and who had not borne arms against the said United States, etc.
"article XII. There shall be a firm and perpetual peace between His Britannic Majesty and the said States, and between the subjects of the one and the citizens of the other. . And His Britannic Majesty shall also order and cause all archives, records, deeds, and papers belonging to any of the said States, or to their citizens, which, in the course of the war, may have fallen into the hands of his. officers, to be forthwith restored and delivered to the proper States and persons to whom they belonged."
The States, now recognized as free and independent, had, in November, 1777, agreed upon "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union," which were referred to the Legislatures of the several States, and, being duly approved, were adopted by the Congress on the 9th day of July, 1778.
From these " Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union " the subjoined extracts are made:
"article I. The style of this Confederacy shall be, the United States of America."
" Article II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the Confederation delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."
"article X. In determining questions in the United States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote."
"article XIII. Each State shall abide by the determinations of the United States, in Congress assembled, on all questions which by this Confederation is submitted to them. And the articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them, unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States and be afterward confirmed by the Legislature of every State."
Our heroic ancestors, against fearful odds, had staked all that men hold most dear in the War for Independence. By unexampled sacrifices they gained that priceless possession. But a long, exhausting war left them poor and heavily encumbered by debts, to provide for which the Confederation had little power. The western lands, for the time unproductive of revenue but of great prospective value, were covered by claims of several States. These were, in some cases, conflicting, and, because of vaguely defined territorial limits and questionable title, the controversies were of such difficult adjustment that they continued after the war had ended.
Happily, the patriotism of the people came to the relief of the General Government and terminated the disputes by the cession of unoccupied lands to be disposed of for the public good.
The Congress applied to the States for a grant of power to regulate foreign trade and commerce, and to impose duties on imports to obtain the needed revenue. It was not found possible to obtain the unanimous assent of the States, and the current of events, including the hostile commercial policy of England, rendering the grant more and more obviously necessary to the general welfare, the Congress, on February 21, 1787.
"Resolved, That it is expedient that, on the second Monday of May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several States, be held in Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions thereon as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union."
This resolution has been quoted at length because it declares the sole purpose to be to revise the Articles of Confederation and recognizes the supremacy of the States as the power to confirm the resolution to be submitted to their several legislatures. And it is to be remembered that it required the unanimous assent of the States to make any alteration in the Articles of Confederation.
When the delegates met in convention, discussion developed the impracticability of amending the Articles of Confederation so as to make them adequate to the exigencies of government, and the convention proceeded to devise a new form of Federal Constitution. There was a well-grounded apprehension that no instrument granting the powers deemed essential would receive unanimous confirmation by the States; and it was provided, by Article XII., that
" The ratification of the Convention of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of the Constitution between the States so ratifying the same."
Therefore the names of the States were not written in the preamble, as they had been in the first draft of the Constitution, and as had been done in the Articles of Confederation, but only the general expression, " We, the People of the United States," which could mean no more or less than the people of the ratifying States.
If it be asked how could nine States consistently secede from the " Confederation and Perpetual Union," of which they were a component part, and the terms of which Union could not be altered unless such alteration should " be confirmed by the Legislature of every State," it is submitted, as an answer to the question, that the States, that is, the people of each State, had never surrendered their Sovereignty, and, by virtue of it, if the Government failed to fulfil the end for which it was established, they had the unalienable right to "alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them should seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
In Convention it was agreed that such States as chose, not less than nine in number, might establish a new form of government ; which necessarily involved separation from some of their associates in the Union which they had covenanted should be perpetual. George Washington presided over their Convention, and transmitted the Constitution drafted by it to the several States, to be ratified or rejected by the people of each State in convention assembled.
The duty assigned to him was not perfunctorily performed; but, deeply anxious for the formation of the more perfect Union projected, which rested on the power of a State to secede from the old Union, and to accede to the new one—as provided by the closing Article (VII.) of the Constitution as submitted to the States—he exerted his great influence to secure ratification by the requisite number of States for the " establishment of the Constitution between the States so ratifying the same." In one of his letters he asks " what the opponents of the Constitution in Virginia would do if nine other States should accede to the Constitution ?" *
After a time the Constitution was ratified by eleven States, and the " more perfect Union" was organized, leaving two States—North Carolina and Rhode Island—sole representatives of the Confederation which had raised the Colonies to statehood and independence. The position of these two States conclusively proves that the sovereignty of each State was an admitted fact, and that it was a voluntary compact to which their assent was requested and from which it was withheld.
The power of the States, in whole or in part, to withdraw from the Union of the Confederation, in 1787, has been conceded by the succeeding generations, and the causes which led to the act have, in like manner, been admitted to be an all-sufficient justification.
And this fact suggests the inquiry, Did the States, by the adoption of the new form of government, deprive themselves of that power ? and if not, did there exist, in 1861, justifiable causes for its exercise ?
- See his letter to Lafayette.
Article X., in amendment of the Constitution (the more entitled to consideration because it was one of the conditions on which the Constitution was ratified), is in these words:
" The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people."
If nowhere is to be found the delegation by the States of sovereignty to the United States, that remained with the States, severally, to be exercised thereafter as it had been in 1787.
Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, said, in reference to the power of nine States to withdraw from the Confederation : " If nine out of thirteen can dissolve the compact, six out of nine will be just as able to dissolve the new one hereafter." Certainly the act of withdrawal, as provided, was to be by the States severally. The number agreeing to withdraw involved the power to maintain the new government, not the right of each to separate itself from the old one. That was a function of Sovereignty, and the terms of the Constitution recognized the right of each State to exercise it; and to Mr. Gerry's contention it might be answered, the power inherently belongs not to a majority, but to each State.
It has sometimes been argued that the powers delegated by the States to the Federal Government included such as were only exercised by sovereigns. It suffices for the present to say that so did those which had been delegated to the Congress of the Confederation.
The consideration of the second branch of the inquiry involves a comparison between the causes which led to secession in 1787 and 1861. In the former case the inefficiency of the Articles of Confederation for some of the purposes of the General Government was presented as the reason for requiring its amendment; and the Convention, when it assembled, proceeded to draft a new form of government which, being submitted and adopted, became the Constitution for a more perfect Union. In the latter case, the destruction of the balance of power which existed when the Constitution was adopted, and subsequent legislation for sectional advantages rather than the general welfare, together with gross and persistent violations of obligations which the States had assumed in the formation of the compact of Union, added to increasing hostility, shamefully displayed, and culminating in invasion, had at length created a feeling that the fraternity in which the Union was founded had ceased to exist—that the Union was no longer one of the heart. In these circumstances a president was elected by a strictly sectional vote—a man who had declared that the Union could not continue to exist " half slave, half free;" whose party dogma was the exclusion of slave-holders from the territory belonging in common to the States, and whose partisans hurled bitterest denunciations and derisive anathemas on the flag of the Union.
The South, as a minority, was naturally attached to the Constitution, as a guarantee of equal rights and protection to public and private interests. Her sons had gathered much glory under the flag of the Union ; it was an emblem of free and independent States, and was the object of pride and affection to her people. A very large majority of her people believed secession to be a remedy that could be peacefully exercised. The Southern States, one after another, passed Ordinances of Secession, but they made no adequate preparations for war, because it was generally believed none were necessary. At the instance of Virginia, leading now for peace as she had led for war in the revolutionary era, a call was issued inviting the States to a convention for the purpose of securing peace to the Union. The Convention met at Washington, D. C., on February 4, 1861,a majority of Northern and Northwestern States and eight of the Southern States being represented. The effort of the wise and patriotic members to secure some proper adjustment of existing issues proved unsuccessful.
The States that had seceded met at Montgomery, Ala., February 4, 1861, formed a Provisional Government by their delegates in Congress assembled, and by them a president and a vice-president were elected, and the Provisional Government was inaugurated on the 18th of the same month.
Immediately thereafter commissioners were sent to Washington with authority to negotiate with the Federal Government for a settlement of all issues between it and the seceded States on the basis of equality and goodwill. These efforts, which continued to the expiration of Mr. Buchanan's term and into the administration of Mr. Lincoln, proved as unproductive of the desired fruit as had the Peace Congress; and yet there were not wanting those among us who believed that the Federal Government, having no grant in the Constitution to use force against a State, would not attempt invasion, but, as did General Jackson, would limit their operations to collecting revenue from the outside of Southern ports.