Confederated States of America

“ They observe that seven States of the American Union, in the exercise of a right inherent in every free people, have withdrawn, through conventions of their people, from the United States, reassumed the attributes of sovereign power, and formed a government of their own, and that those Confederate States now constitute an independent nation, de facto and de jure, and possess a government perfect in all its parts, and fully endowed with all the means of self-support. ”

“ We, the People of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent Federal Government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, 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. ”

“ North Carolina and Georgia were not at that time represented in Congress. A committee was appointed to prepare a circular letter to such states as had not authorized their delegates to ratify the Confederation, which was brought in and adopted, as follows:—
Sir:Congress, intent upon the present and future security of these United States, has never ceased to consider a confederacy as the great principle of union, which can alone establish the liberty of America, and exclude forever the hopes of its enemies. ”

“ We can so modify the powers of Congress, that we will all be mutual supporters of one another. The disparity of the states can be no difficulty. We know this by experience. Virginia and Massachusetts were the first who unanimously ratified the old Confederation. They then had no claim to more votes in Congress than one. Foreign states have made treaties with us as confederated states, not as a national government. ”

“ For nearly three years this Government has exercised unquestioned jurisdiction over many millions of willing and united people. It has met and defeated vast armies of invaders, who have in vain sought its subversion. Supported by the confidence and affection of its citizens, the Confederacy has lacked no element which distinguishes an independent nation according to the principles of public law. ”

“ When judiciously and properly exercised, the Constitution itself may be saved from infraction and the rights of all preserved and protected.
The inestimable value of our Federal Union is felt and acknowledged by all. By this system of united and confederated States our people are permitted collectively and individually to seek their own happiness in their own way, and the consequences have been most auspicious. Since the Union was formed the number of the States has increased from thirteen to twenty-eight ”

“ The Federalists maintained that the central government, representing the States in union, might, if it pleased, as a consequence of its inherent sovereignty, hold the rest of America in its possession and govern it as England governed Jamaica or as Spain was governing Louisiana, but without the consent of the States could not admit such new territory into the Union. ”

“ There is every reason to believe that at no distant day other States, identified in political principles and community of interests with those which you represent, will join this Confederacy, giving to its typical constellation increased splendor, to its Government of free, equal, and sovereign States a wider sphere of usefulness, and to the friends of constitutional liberty a greater security for its harmonious and perpetual existence. ”

“ To the general government arc assigned all those powers, which relate to the common interests of all the states, as comprising one confederated nation. While to each state is reserved all those powers, which may affect, or promote its own domestic interests, its peace, its prosperity, its policy, and its local institutions. ”

“ It is hardly conceivable, that so much solicitude should have been exhibited to introduce, as between confederated states, much less between states united under the same national government, a clause merely affirmative of an established rule of law, and not denied to the humblest, or most distant foreign nation. ”

“ But this, as well as other subjects appropriate to our necessities, have doubtless engaged the attention of Congress.
With a Constitution differing only from that of our fathers in so far as it is explanatory of their well-known intent, freed from sectional conflicts, which have interfered with the pursuit of the general welfare, it is not unreasonable to expect that States from which we have recently parted may seek to unite their fortunes to ours under the Government which we have instituted. ”

“ It was to frame, for the consideration of their constituents, one federal and national constitution—a constitution that would produce the advantages of good, and prevent the inconveniences of bad government—a constitution whose beneficence and energy would pervade the whole Union, and bind and embrace the interests of every part—a constitution that would insure peace, freedom, and happiness, to the states and people of America. ”

“ There were, indeed, citizens of the Sovereign State of South Carolina, or of Georgia or Florida, who permitted themselves to pass under that designation, but it was merely as a matter of personal convenience. It will be difficult for Europeans to understand this doctrine, as nothing like it has been heard before, and no such Confederation of Sovereign States has ever existed in any country in the world. The Northern men deny that it existed here, and claim for the Federal Government powers not compatible with such assumptions. ”

“ They wish to see the Confederated States bound together by the most indissoluble union, but without renouncing their separate sovereignties and independence, and becoming tributaries to a consolidated fabrick of aristocratick tyranny.——They wish to see18 government established, and peaceably holding the reins with honour, energy, and dignity ”

“ The same principle was again acted upon without dissent in 1852, in the recognition of the Government of Louis Napoleon; and in the recognition of Texas, when she seceded, or withdrew, from the Government of Mexico. Well may any and every one, North or South, exclaim, What is all this for? What have we done to the North? When have we ever wronged them? We quit them, it is true, as our ancestors and their ancestors quit the British Government. We quit as they quit — upon a question of constitutional right. That question they determined for themselves, and we have but done the same. ”

“ The Congress now controls foreign commerce, raises the revenue, levies taxes, and cares for the welfare of the nation. By the Articles, new members of the Confederation were to be admitted by the consent of nine—about two-thirds of the States. By the Constitution, the applicants are regarded rather as an organized body of men, seeking to identify themselves with the American people. To such the national Congress extends the privilege of citizenship, and from such demands conformity to our method of national life. ”