Human Slavery and the origins of the American Civil War

The “Peculiar Institution”

Natural fear overcame curiosity as the Blue Heron took to wing and flew away from us into the trees. My wife and I had gotten up a good head of speed in our canoe before putting down our paddles, and we silently glided quite close to the great bird. It's passing left us alone in silence on that lake near Williamsburg, Virginia. Surrounded by trees and water, there was nothing to suggest civilization but our own presence. It was easy for me to imagine the feelings of those early English settlers. Here was a land of unimaginable expanse. New. Untamed. Virtually empty.

The English colonists came to America for a variety of reasons. Some thirsted for personal liberty, or religious freedom. Others sought economic opportunity. Still others were escaping from poverty or political persecution, while some were sent unwillingly as exiles. But the reason most relevant to this examination was the creation and accumulation of personal wealth; for the New World was a vast treasure trove of natural resources. But those resources were raw and undeveloped. Choices would be made and actions taken in the quest to turn raw potential into personal wealth, position and power. And those choices would be made with little care for future consequences.

The middle-Atlantic and southern regions of North America were particularly suited for medium to large-scale agricultural operations. However, in this ‘pre John Deere’ era any man thinking of making his fortune off the land immediately realized the absolute necessity of dependable and reasonably priced manpower—and lots of it. Although slavery was certainly an available option, it was by no means a foregone conclusion. While the British were not averse to putting the screws to people overseas, they did not have a domestic culture of chattel slavery. The early colonists simply needed manpower, and they were not too picky as to the kind of manpower or where it came from as long as the work got done.

The most immediate and available manpower sources were Native American Indians taken as slaves and Englishmen indentured to servitude for a period of years. Black Africans were also available as slaves, but the Dutch controlled the African slave trade during the early through mid 1600s and their prices were prohibitively high. Indian slaves were a disappointment because they were not culturally suited to structured labor, and since they were on ‘home ground’ they had the tendency to successfully escape. As a result, most Indians captured for slavery in North America were sold to plantation owners in Latin America (Kolchin,7-9). Keep firmly in mind that the Spanish and Portugese were up to their eyeballs in the slave labor system in their respective Caribbean and Latin American colonies long before the first black African slaves were brought into the Chesapeake Bay colonies in 1619.

The use of indentured English during this period was much more common. Political and economic turmoil in Europe made service in America seem a relatively attractive option to those out of work, homeless and hungry. Landowners in America also benefited from a cheap supply of labor that could be counted on for several years of work. An added incentive for many landowners was a government bonus of additional acreage for every indentured servant brought into the colonies.

However, the restoration of the British monarchy (1660) and British victory in the Anglo-Dutch War (1664-1667) changed the dynamic of labor forces in the American colonies. Almost simultaneously, the improved conditions in Europe dried up the supply of people willing to indenture to America, while newly won British control of the African slave trade brought prices down to a reasonable level. To illustrate, consider that in York County, Virginia from 1680-1694 the ratio of white indentures to black slaves dropped from 1.9 to 1 down to 0.07 to 1. The entrenchment of the slave labor system had begun (Kolchin, 11-12).

The problems of the initial cost of slaves and the difficulties in breaking them to lifelong, hard field labor were more than compensated by the fact that those slaves represented a permanent work force with absolutely no rights or privileges. And whereas white indentures could walk away and blend in with the general white population, black slaves had virtually no hope of escape and nowhere to go if they did escape. A truly major side benefit of the slave labor force was that it was self-regenerating, with the offspring being chattel property like their parents.

That last point above is very important because it illustrates a major difference between North American slavery and that existing elsewhere in the hemisphere. A good 85% of all Africans brought to the New World ended up on the giant commercial plantations in the Caribbean, Central or South America. Those operations—sometimes covering entire islands—were run strictly for profit and it was not uncommon for the black slave population to outnumber the total white population by a factor of ten to one. But those work forces were mostly male and needed constant replenishment because of high mortality levels and low birth rates. Those slave populations were actually in natural decline throughout their entire histories (Kolchin, 22).

Contrast this with conditions in North America. While slavery here was certainly no picnic, the chances for survival were much better than in Latin America for the following reasons: the climate was more temperate and less prone to epidemic diseases; the plantation operations were smaller and the slave work force was generally broken up into smaller work gangs; and plantation owners were more likely to be personally involved in operations. And most important, the slave women experienced a higher birth rate and infant survival level than in Latin America. By the mid 1700s the North American slave population was in solid natural increase. By 1808 (the Constitutional deadline for stopping the importation of slaves) America had little real need for the international slave trade, as the natural birthrate of slaves supplied the domestic needs (Kolchin, 22-23).

While the slave labor system by the late 1700s had proved itself to be a very workable arrangement (at least from the plantation owners' point of view), it is relevant to ask if America would have been better off instead with a free labor system as was being practiced in the northern States. In the long run and with the wisdom of 20-20 hindsight the answer would be “Yes”. But the primary purpose of the men involved in establishing the slave labor system was the creation and accumulation of personal wealth. Any practical plan for dismantling the slave system would have had to been derived from that perspective. If the institution of slavery was to be dismantled, the best opportunity was probably presented during the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787. While rice production was vigorous in South Carolina and Georgia, land exhaustion in the middle-Atlantic states had depressed the tobacco trade and the demand for slave labor in that region. This, however, was a factor of bad land management, not a problem with the slave labor system itself.

The deficiencies of the slave labor system were certainly well known at the time. On August 21, 1787, Luther Martin of Maryland opened the subject at the Convention with the following critique:

“In the first place, as five slaves are to be counted as 3 freemen, in the apportionment of Representatives, such a clause would leave an encouragement to this traffic. In the second place, slaves weaken one part of the Union, which the other parts are bound to protect; the privilege of importing them is therefore unreasonable. And in the third place, it is inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution and dishonorable to the American character, to leave such a feature in the Constitution (Farrand, pg. 364).”

What should have developed into a plan to peaceably and equitably end the institution of human slavery in North America was cut short by the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia, who had no intentions of allowing anything to possibly interfere with their profitable operations. Said John Rutledge of South Carolina:

“Religion and humanity have nothing to do with this question. Interest alone is the governing principle with nations. The true question at present is, whether the Southern States shall or shall not be parties to the Union. If the Northern States consult their interest, they will not oppose the increase of slaves, which will increase the commodities of which they will become the carriers (ibid).”

Charles Pinckney was even more blunt: “South Carolina can never receive the plan if it prohibits the slave trade (ibid).” That solid opportunity was allowed to pass not only without resolution but with actual protection of slavery (Art. I, Sect. 9, para. 1 & Art. IV, Sect. 2, Cl. 3). Such an opportunity would not come again. From that time forward, any resolution of the institution of slavery could come only with the greatest of difficulties.

After the turn of the century, the differences between the Northern and Southern States would increase and accelerate. The North would develop an expanding and multifaceted industrial/commercial economy based on an open, circulating, capitalist system. Workers would create wealth that would then be sold both domestically and overseas. The workers would receive a share of this wealth in wages that would then circulate throughout the region and economy. While this system was often cruel and hard, it represented the basis of the economic prosperity we enjoy today.

The South, on the other hand, developed a rigid rural/agrarian economy based on a closed, linear capitalist system. Slaves would create wealth from the soil. The staple products they produced would mostly be sold outside the region or overseas and the resulting wealth of money and goods would return to the hands of the minority landowners. This wealth would circulate only weakly in the region because the slaves received little or no portion of the wealth, nor did the non-slave owning white majority who, for the most part, were priced out of the plantation system. This wealth went into the acquisition of more land and slaves, or was dissipated in extravagance or thriftlessness (Kolchin, 171-3).

The invention of the Cotton Engine by Eli Whitney in 1793 along with the development of steam power locomotion, and the adoption of proper land reclamation and management practices, caused an explosion in commercial agriculture and demand for slave labor. Cotton production went from 4,000 bales in 1791 to over 5,000,000 bales in 1859, and land under tillage stretched from the Atlantic coast through Texas and Missouri (Randall/Donald, 36). During the 1840s and 1850s prudent plantation owners could reasonably look forward to profits on investment on the order of 5% - l0% per year, with even higher returns in the virgin Southwest. In the Old South, plantation owners who inherited land and slaves, and practiced good land management, could take advantage of their low overhead and reap healthy profits (Stampp, 408-11).

But the entire slave-based economic system was unbalanced and increasingly at odds not only with the North but with the international community. With the force of an Old Testament prophet, Col. George Mason of Virginia very neatly summed up the issue of slavery during the Constitutional Convention:

“This infernal traffic originated in the avarice of British merchants. The British Government constantly checked the attempts of Virginia to put a stop to it. The present question concerns not the importing States alone, But the whole Union. …Maryland and Virginia have already prohibited the importation of slaves expressly. North Carolina has done the same in substance. All this will be in vain if South Carolina and Georgia be at liberty to import. The Western people are already calling out for slaves for their new lands; and will fill that country with slaves, if they can be got through South Carolina and Georgia. Slavery discourages arts and manufactures. The poor despise labor when performed by slaves. They prevent the emigration of whites, who really enrich and strengthen a country. They produce the most pernicious effect on manners. Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. They bring the judgment of Heaven on a country. As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes national sins by national calamities (Farrand, pg. 370).”

Monticello, January 6, 1821

“…The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages [in the Declaration of Independence] which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence. The clause too, reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in complaisance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who, on the contrary, still wished to continue it. Our northern brethren also, I believe, felt a little tender under those censures, for though their people had very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

Thomas Jefferson
Autobiography (Jefferson, 345)

The Peculiar Constitution

“The amazing thing about the constitution is that it is as good as it is—that so subtle and complete a document emerged from that long debate. Most of the framers, obviously, were second rate men; before and after their session they accomplished nothing in the world. Yet during that session they made an almost perfect job of the work in hand.”
(H. L. Mencken to James M. Beck, 1924)

The original Founders of this nation—in the Spirit of '76—felt that the purpose of this country was to maximize the freedom and liberty of the people; the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness being the essence of meaningful existence. They realized that government was necessary to the successful conduct of civilized society, but held that such government should be conducted by We the People at the lowest level which would effect satisfaction. Local government was preferable to State government, which would be recurred to only in those areas beyond the capability of local government. State government was preferable to general government, which would be recurred to only to ensure the peaceful coexistence of the several States and to secure our place among the Nations of the world.

However, ten years of practical experience with the government established during the Revolutionary War by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (November 15, 1777) demonstrated the imbecility, impotence, and ineffectiveness of a general government endowed with insufficient powers, resource, and vigor. In 1787 this dire domestic crisis and international embarrassment led to a call for constitutional convention; ostensibly to improve the Articles, but in fact to fashion a new Government. With a virtually blank slate before them, the men who convened at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention faced a fundamental choice: adhere with the genius of the American people and propose a carefully limited, restricted, Federal Republican form of general government or give the new government maximum latitude by establishing an essentially unrestricted Unitary National form of government; but risk rejection by the People.

The advantages, efficiencies, and effectiveness of a truly overarching ‘unitary national’ form of government are very appealing, but the real dangers of such an instrument were matters of great sensitivity to the people of that era, and the proposal of a limited Federal Republican form of government with clearly divided Sovereignties was very much expected from the Convention. A convincing case, however, can be made that the Framers desired, and actually formed, a strong unitary national government, but artfully packaged the new general government so as to make it appear to the general public to be a carefully limited republican form of government. My readings on this subject give no hint of deception on the part of the Framers. They were sincere in their belief that they had crafted a true limited general government. However, the peculiar construction of the final document is central to this examination of the Origins of the American Civil War.

The Constitution of the United States of America is a masterpiece of brevity and conciseness. But this very conciseness leaves open the question of States Rights (Actually a misnomer. People have rights; governments have powers and authority). Place yourself in the position of a person fluent in the English language but utterly ignorant of English and American history and government. Now read the original U. S. Constitution, in particular Article 1, Section 8. What are the explicit powers of the States? Aside from the appointment of Senators and militia officers, and authority for training the militia, these powers are nil. Are the States explicitly protected from federal powers? Only to the extent of protecting slave importation until 1808 and prohibiting export taxes, and some general restrictions found in Article I, Section 9. The general government was granted extensive authority to act as referee between the States in order to prevent trade frictions, as provided in Article 1, Sections 9 & 10, and Article 4.

Most important to this question of States Rights is the grammar employed in framing the Article I, Section 8 powers of Congress. These powers are quite rightly wide ranging, but note that—with the exceptions of the disposition of tax revenues, Army appropriations and militia officer appointment—they are logically and grammatically unbounded. There are no internal indicators as to limits or constraints. Patrick Henry railed against this apparent defect in his very extensive critique of the proposed Constitution during the Virginia Ratification Convention in 1788. On June 14, for example, he said, “…For if its powers be infinite, what rights have the people remaining?” And later, “…This unlimited authority is a most dangerous power: its principles are despotic. If it be unbounded, it must lead to despotism; for the power of a people in a free government is supposed to be paramount to the existing power (Young, 413 & 417).”

At this time, Virginia's governor Randolph hit to the heart of the matter when he commented, “…Ought not common sense to be the rule of interpreting this Constitution?…(ibid, 414)” For the nature and character of our federal government depend entirely on the “sense” of those people elected or appointed into federal office. If their genius be republican in spirit then we will have a limited and restrained general government. If, however, their genius be towards an unlimited Unitary National form of government, then the boundless and grammatically unrestricted powers of the Constitution are more than sufficient to that end.

The “Peculiar Institution” was in the peculiar position of existing by the graces of a general government of ill-defined nature. The Rights and Powers of the several States are all those not granted to the general government nor explicitly prohibited to the States by the federal Constitution, per the 10th Amendment.

But if the powers of the general government can be expanded to infinity, then the powers of the States are—by mathematical extension—reduced to zero. This was why the Southern States were so sensitive to “balance” in government from 1820 until 1861. As long as an evenly balanced Senate could block—or a racist Supreme Court overturn—hostile legislation, the threat of abolition was kept at bay. However, the election of Abraham Lincoln and the very real prospect of political imbalance in the future brought the “States Rights” issue to a head. The Southern States could not trust their economic wealth to the thin—and possibly nonexistent—shield of “States Rights”. Rather than put the issue to a test, they sought to sidestep it entirely through secession and the formation of an entirely new and independent Nation. The fundamental questions regarding the nature and bounds of the Federal government remain unanswered to this day. Consider the professional differences in opinion on this issue between Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story in his Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833) and that of Judge Abel P. Upshur in his Brief Enquiry into the True Nature and Character of Our Federal Government (1840), both linked at end.

It is interesting and relevant to note that the Confederate Constitution itself made scant extra provision for States Rights (see Appendix). While the Southern States were hypersensitive to their prerogatives (often to the detriment of their own war effort) they really had no more ‘rights’ under the new constitution than they had under the old. To my mind, the issue was never that of ‘States Rights’, but rather the preservation of the slave labor system for acquiring personal property, wealth and power. The Confederate Constitution made extensive and explicit provisions to protect, expand, and perpetuate the Peculiar Institution of human chattel slavery.

However, lurking in the background was a very subtle defect in the original U.S. Constitution that was brought to light by the infamous Dred Scott v Sandford case of 1857. In short, the chattel slave named Dred Scott was taken in 1834 by his owner Dr. Emerson from the slave State of Missouri first to Illinois and then in 1836 to Fort Snelling on the west bank of the Mississippi River in what was at that time the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase Territory (in present day Minneapolis, Minnesota). In 1838 Dr. Emerson returned to Missouri and then sold Dred Scott, along with Scott's family, to John Sandford. In 1846, Scott sought his freedom through the Courts by arguing that since Congress had declared this part of the Louisiana Purchase Territory to be a non-slave ‘free’ territory that he and his family were effectively emancipated regardless their forced return to the slave State of Missouri.

This argument was predicated on the belief that Congress had the constitutional power under Article IV, Section 3, Clause 2 “…to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States;…” , and therefore had the authority to ban slavery in the territories. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, however, showed with awful correctness in the seven-justice Majority Opinion that this clause appertained only to those territorial lands and property ceded to the general government by the original States shortly before and immediately after the ratification of the new federal Constitution crafted by the Philadelphia Convention of 1787.

The defect in the original Constitution was that the Framers had made provision for the regulation and disposal of lands ceded to the new federal government by the original States, and also made explicit provision for admitting as new States those fully settled and politically developed territorial lands (acquired by any means), but made no explicit provision for Congress to manage undeveloped territorial lands acquired by the new federal government through treaty, purchase, or conquest after the adoption of the Constitution. That being the case, the Supreme Court majority ruled that Congress could not prohibit common property ownership rights such as chattel slaves in undeveloped, federally purchased (finalized on April 30, 1803), territorial regions like Fort Snelling. Therefore all such laws affecting slavery were struck down as unconstitutional.

Although Supreme Court justices McLean and Curtis vigorously disagreed with the reasoning and historical review of the Majority in their respective Dissents, they in no way opined against the Peculiar Institution of human slavery itself in the Southern States. Even if they had spoken for the majority, only a small percentage of slaves (such as Dred Scott and his family) would have been affected by any such decision from the High Court. The vast majority of slaves would never have been in the free territories and therefore would not have been affected by even the largest, most liberal opinion the Supreme Court could have possibly rendered in this particular Case.

For that reason I regard the Dred Scott v Sandford case as little more than irrelevant irritation and historical distraction.

Monticello, January 6, 1821

“The bill on the subject of slaves, was a mere digest of the existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a future and general emancipation. It was thought better that this should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment, whenever the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment, however, were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after a certain day, and deportation at a proper age. But it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate, than that these people are to be free. …”

Thomas Jefferson
Autobiography (Jefferson, 348)

Let My People Go

The institution of slavery is as old as civilization. The benefits of slavery to owners and rulers are fairly obvious. But these owners—unless particularly kind and humane—are required to either not think about or not care about the plight of those who are enslaved. This has been a cruel world and down through the ages there have been many people more than willing to trample down their fellow Man in order to achieve wealth, position and power.

However, as soon as you develop any sort of sensitivity or conscience you are in trouble. And if you claim adherence to Christianity, slaveholding becomes a real problem. Even the most cursory examination of the gospels shows slave owning—and the methods necessary to maintain it—in serious conflict with the teachings of Jesus. When He said, “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39 KJV) or, “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (John 13:34-35 KJV) He really put slave owners between a rock and a hard place.

Regretably, the original British colonial slave owners and their American successors did not worry about this. Slaves were regarded as subhuman tools; wealth was the main object; and that was that. But a spiritual revival occurred in America during the mid to late 1700s and the institution of slavery felt the first heat of the Abolition Movement. That heat would only intensify as slavery weakened and effectively disappeared in the North. After all, abolitionists in the North could afford to be righteous where there was no economic interest at risk. While the economic criticism of slavery was weak, the moral and religious objections were quite strong. The “Peculiar Institution” had no friend in Jesus, and Southern slave owners were hard put to defend their position in light of the teachings and commands of the Christian New Testament.

As if religion was not problem enough, the mid to late 1700s also saw the full flowering of the American Enlightenment. The philosophical ideal of the equality of Man—so eloquently expressed in the Declaration of Independence—ran headlong into the realities of slavery. But this awakening did have its effects in the manumission or emancipation of slaves, particularly by will upon a slaveholder's death. This is illustrated by the following figures:

Unfortunately, the American Enlightenment was in dusk by 1810 and few slaves were freed in the South after that time. By 1861, not only the percentages, but the actual numbers of free Blacks in the South were in decline (Kolchin, 81-2).

Monticello, April 13, 1820

“Although I had laid down as a law to myself, never to write, talk, or even think of politics, to know nothing of public affairs, and therefore had ceased to read newspapers, yet the Missouri question aroused and filled me with alarm. The old schism of federal and republican threatened nothing, because it existed in every State, and united them together by the fraternism of party. But the coincidence of a marked principle, moral and political, with geographical line, once conceived, I feared would never more be obliterated from the mind; that it would be recurring on every occasion and renewing irritations, until it would kindle such mutual and mortal hatred, as to render separation preferable to eternal discord. I have been among the most sanguine in believing that our Union would be of long duration. I now doubt it much, and see the event at no great distance, and the direct consequence of this question; not by the line which has been so confidently counted on; the laws of nature control this; but by the Potomac, Ohio and Missouri, or more probably, the Mississippi upwards to our northern boundary. My only comfort and confidence is, that I shall not live to see this; and I envy not the present generation the glory of throwing away the fruits of their fathers' sacrifices of life and fortune, and of rendering desperate the experiment which was to decide ultimately whether man is capable of self-government?”

Thomas Jefferson to William Short
(Jefferson, 336-7)

Collision Course!

The realities of maintaining a large-scale human chattel slave system were in stark contrast and conflict with the teachings of Jesus and the philosophic ideals of the American Enlightenment. By 1860, slavery was deeply entrenched in the South as a very lucrative, successful, and expanding labor system. Nothing short of gunpowder could loosen it. The door to a peaceful solution of the “Peculiar Institution” was closed by South Carolina and Georgia in 1787. Then Eli Whitney locked that door shut in the 1790s with the invention of the cotton gin, along with the subsequent development of steam power engines and locomotion.

The hundred year rise of the Abolition Movement virtually guaranteed violence. After 1820, this movement gained in numbers, political strength and activism. Abolitionists were quite willing to go toe-to-toe with slavers in the territories, and fanatics like John Brown had no compunction about murder if they thought it would help end slavery.

The “Peculiar Institution” was a particular embarrassment to America in the international community. Our own Declaration of Independence made us look like hypocrites in the face of nations that had formally renounced slavery and the slave trade. There was no apology for this other than selfish personal gain.

Conclusion

Was this trip really necessary? In the Year of our Lord 1787 the answer might possibly have been “No”. But by 1860, the forces involved were beyond containment. Any compromise allowing the continuation of slavery would only have postponed the Day of Reckoning. We have perhaps to thank South Carolina for precipitating secession before the Southern Confederacy was fully organized, prepared, and mobilized for war. Otherwise, the Confederacy might very well have won independence, with all of its attending problems echoing to the present day.

Questions? Comments? e-mail the author at “bloedel@verizon.net”

Bibliography

Farrand, Max
Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, Vol. 2
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1911

Jefferson, Thomas
Jefferson's Letters
Whitman, Willson ed.
Eau Clare: E. M. Hale & Co., undated

Kolchin, Peter
American Slavery: 1619-1877
1st rev. ed., 10th anniversary ed.
NY: Hill & Wang, 2003

Randall/Donald
The Civil War and Reconstruction, 2nd ed.
Lexington: D. C. Heath and Co., 1969

Stampp, Kenneth M.
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South
NY: Knopf, 1956

Thomas, Emory M.
The Confederate Nation: 1861-1865
NY: Harper & Row, 1979

Story, Joseph, LL. D.
COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES
Commentaries (1833)
Lonang Institute website

Upshur, Abel, P.
A Brief Enquiry into the True Nature and Character of Our Federal Government
A Brief Enquiry (1840)
Constitution.org website

Young, David E. ed.
The origin of the Second Amendment: A Documentary Historyof the Bill of Rights 1787-1792, 2nd ed.
Ontonagon: Golden Oak Books, 1995

Recommended supplemental material:

Kammen, Michael, ed.
The Origins of the American Constitution: A Documentary History
NY: Penguin, 1986

Dred Scott v Sandford

Appendix

(Note: the Confederate Constitution was a modified version of the original U. S. Federal Constitution of 1787. Significant differences between the two are presented below and shown in italics)

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America, March 11, 1861

We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity-invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God-do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.

Art. I [the Legislative]

Sec. 6. (2) No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the Confederate States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the Confederate States shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office. But Congress may, by law, grant to the principal officer in each of the Executive Departments a seat upon the floor of either House, with the privilege of discussing any measure appertaining to his department.

Sec. 7. (2) Every bill which shall have passed both Houses shall, before it becomes a law, be presented to the President of the Confederate States; if he approve he shall sign it; but if not, he shall return it with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of the House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases, the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law. The President may approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the same bill. In such case he shall, in signing the bill, designate the appropriations disapproved; and shall return a copy of such appropriations, with his objections, to the House in which the bill shall have originated; and the same proceedings shall then be had as in case of other bills disapproved by the President.

Sec. 8.The Congress shall have power-(1) To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, for revenue necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defence, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted 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.
(3) To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes; but neither this nor any other clause contained in the Constitution shall 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 upon the coasts, and the improvement of harbors, and the removing of obstructions in the river navigation, in all which cases, such duties shall be laid on the navigation facilitated thereby, as may be necessary to pay the costs and expenses thereof.
(7) To establish post-offices and post-routes; but the expenses of the Post-office Department, after the first day of March, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-three, shall be paid out of its own revenues.

Sec. 9. (1) The importation of Negroes of the African race, from any foreign county, other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.
(2) Congress shall also have power to prohibit the introduction of slaves from any State not a member of, or Territory not belonging to, this Confederacy.
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in Negro slaves shall be passed.
(9) Congress shall appropriate no money from the treasury except by vote of two-thirds of both Houses, taken by yeas and nays, unless it be asked and estimated from by some one of the heads of departments, and submitted to Congress by the President; or for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies; or for the payment of claims against the Confederate States, the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by a tribunal for the investigation of claims against the Government, which it is hereby made the duty of Congress to establish.
(10) All bills appropriating money shall specify in federal currency the exact amount of each appropriation and the purposes for which it is made; and Congress shall grant no extra compensation to any public contractor, officer, agent, or servant, after such contract shall have been made or such service rendered.
[NOTE: Clauses 12-19 duplicated Amendments 1-8 of the federal Bill of Rights]
(20) Every law, or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

Sec. 10. (3) No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty on tonnage, except on sea-going vessels, for the improvement of its rivers and harbors navigated by the said vessels; but such duties shall not conflict with any treaties of the Confederate States with foreign nations; and surplus revenue, thus derived, shall, after making such improvement, be paid into the common treasury; nor shall any State keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. But when any river divides or flows through two or more States, they may enter into compacts with each other to improve the navigation thereof.

Art. II Sec. 1. (1) The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the Confederate States of America. He and the Vice-President shall hold their offices for the term of six years; but the President shall not be reeligible. The President and Vice-President shall be elected as follows:…

Sec. 2.(3) The principal officer in each of the Executive Departments, and all persons connected with the diplomatic service, may be removed from office at the pleasure of the President. All other civil officers of the Executive Departments may be removed at any time by the President, or other appointing power, when their services are unnecessary, or for dishonesty, incapacity, inefficiency, misconduct, or neglect of duty; and when so removed, the removal shall be reported to the Senate, together with the reasons therefore.

Art. III Sec. 1. (1) The judicial power of the Confederate States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office. [Note: my copy of the Confederate Constitution trails off at this point. Sections 2 and 3 from the U.S. Federal Constitution do not appear.]

Art. IV Sec. 2. (1) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens of 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 said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States, and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of Negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.

Art. V Sec. 1 (1) Upon the demand of any three States, legally assembled in their several Conventions, the Congress shall summon a Convention of all the States, to take into consideration such amendments to the Constitution as the said States shall concur in suggesting at the time when the said demand is made; and should any of the proposed amendments to the Constitution be agreed on by the said Convention —voting by States—and the same be ratified by the Legislatures of two-thirds thereof—as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the general convention—they shall thenceforward form a part of this Constitution. But no State shall, without its consent, be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate.

Art. VI (1)—The Government established by this Constitution is the successor of the provisional Government of the Confederate States of America, and all the laws passed by the latter shall continue in force until the same shall be repealed or modified; and all the officers appointed by the same shall remain in office until their successors are appointed and qualified, or the offices abolished.
[NOTE: Clauses 5 & 6 duplicated Amendments 9 & 10 of the federal Bill of Rights]

Art. VII (1)—The ratification of the conventions of five States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.
(2) When five States shall have ratified this Constitution in the manner before specified, the Congress, under the provisional Constitution, shall prescribe the time for holding the election of President and Vice-President, and for the meeting of the electoral college, and for counting the votes and inaugurating the President. They shall also prescribe the time for holding the first election of members of Congress under this Constitution, and the time for assembling the same. Until the assembling of such Congress, the Congress under the provisional Constitution shall continue to exercise the legislative powers granted them; not extending beyond the time limited by the Constitution of the Provisional Government.

Adopted unanimously by the Congress of the Confederate States of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, sitting in convention at the capitol, in the city of Montgomery, Alabama, on the Eleventh day of March, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-One.

Howell Cobb, President of the Congress
(Thomas, 307)

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