Confederate States of America | The final draft printing of the Confederate Constitution, annotated by a delegate to the Confederate Congress

Confederate States of America

The Constitution of the Confederate States of America. [Montgomery, Alabama: by Shorter & Reid(?) for the Provisional Congress, ca. 10 March, 1861]

Printed document, 29 numbered leaves (340 x 216 mm, width slightly variable) of machine-made laid-texture paper (without watermark), at head: "In Congress—March 9, 1861—Amended Constitution—100 copies ordered to be printed," roman type with italic, 20 lines broadly leaded, with twenty-two contemporary manuscript corrections, deletions, and emendations in ink by a member of the Confederate Congress; final leaf with marginal repairs, some scattered stains. Elaborate emblematic red morocco by the Derome Bindery, Buffalo; front cover slightly dampstained, some rubbing and fading.

The third (and final) draft of the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States, printed for the private use of Congress; one of only five copies known.

Provoked or resigned to secession as the only course by which they might preserve their way of life, and seeing that president-elect Lincoln would never permit the rupture of the United States, as James Buchanan might have done, the slaveholding states hastened during the winter of 1860–1861 not only to secede from the Union but also to form among themselves a viable, defensible nation. South Carolina had seceded from the Union on 20 December 1860, and immediately dispatched commissioners to the other states of the lower South to encourage secession throughout the region. By 1 February 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had seceded as well; and on 4 February, again at the instigation of South Carolina, a convention of representatives from the seceded states met in the old state capitol at Montgomery, Alabama, to organize a new nation.

Facing the press of time and circumstance, the convention established itself immediately as a Provisional Congress and named a committee to draft a provisional constitution that could serve until a permanent constitution could be written and ratified. The official Provisional Constitution was written and approved in just four days—and a new committee began work the next day on a Permanent Constitution. That committee reported on 26 February, and thereafter the Provisional Congress resolved itself daily into a constitutional convention, meticulously revising the committee's draft until, on 11 March, the Congress was able to unanimously approve the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

Three printed drafts were issued for the use of the deliberating congressmen, each in turn incorporating agreed-to changes. The printing here represents the last draft (the first and second issues are described as Parrish & Willingham 5 and 6), and has been well marked by the unidentified delegate who first used it to follow and participate in the debate. While clearly modeled on the United States Constitution—including a preamble beginning "We, the people of the Confederate States" and the incorporation of much of the Bill of Rights into Section 9 of Article I—the Confederate version sought "to incorporate Southern state rights principles into organic law" (Yearns, p. 24). Among other substantive differences from the Federal Constitution, the Confederate preamble eliminated the "general welfare" clause; individual states were permitted to maintain their own armies and navies; the president—who was limited to a single, six-year term—was granted a line-item veto; Congress was limited in pork-barrel spending by the denial of the ability to appropriate money "for any internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce"; and there was no ban on plural office-holding.

The numerous holograph emendations made to both printings provide a rare insight into the discussions that shaped the final Constitution. In the first line of the preamble, the delegate has indicated the insertion of the word "state" in the phrase "each state acting in its sovereign and independent character"; in Article I, Section 7, clause 3, which specifies a two-thirds vote in Congress to override a Presidential veto, he has substituted the word "may" for "shall"; in Section 8, clause 3, of the same Article, which enumerates the powers of the Confederate Congress, the phrase "may be necessary" is inserted in the final line; and in Section 9, clause 3, of the first Article, which deals with treasury and budgetary matters, "shall have" replaces "has" in the phrase "the justice of which shall have been judicially declared by a tribunal." All of these revisions must have been adopted by the consent of the full Provisional Congress because they also appear in the copy used by Alabama delegate Thomas Fearn (sold by a descendant of Fearn's at Sotheby's, 21 May 1993, lot 24, and resold at Christie's New York, 17 June 2003, lot 41).

The most extensive revisions in the present copy occur in Article VII and clearly underscore the time pressure facing the convention. The printed text "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," is transformed by the delegates holograph to "As soon as five States shall have ratified this Constitution, in the manner before specified, the Congress under the Provisional Constitution, shall proceed immediately to prescribe the time for holding the first election of President and Vice President. …"

On 12 March, Howell Cobb, president of the Confederate constitutional convention, forwarded copies of the Constitution to the secession conventions of the states, advising them in a covering letter that the new Constitution's departures from the United States Constitution "have been suggested by the experience of the past; and are intended to guard against the evils and dangers which led to the dissolution of the late Union" (quoted in Parrish & Willingham 2). The Confederate Constitution was ratified by large majorities in all the state conventions, and thus became the foundation of the Confederacy as an independent nation.

All of the draft printings of the Confederate Constitution are exceptionally rare: only four other copies are known of the present printing: a copy at the Boston Athenaeum (formerly the Streeter copy), a copy at the Virginia State Library, the Thomas Fearn copy, and another sold at Heritage, 8 December 2011, lot 34026.

PROVENANCE

Sotheby's New York, 14 June 2016, lot 203 (part)

REFERENCES

Celebration of My Country 193; Parrish & Willingham, Confederate Imprints 7; Streeter 2:1275; cf. De Renne, A Short History of the Confederate Constitutions (1909); De Rosa, The Confederate Constitution of 1861: An Inquiry into American Constitutionalism (1991); Lee, The Confederate Constitutions (1963); Yearns, The Confederate Congress (1960), pp. 22–30