Looking back at the Confederate Constitution
On March 11, 1861, delegates from the newly formed Confederate States of America agreed on their own constitution. Here is a look at this little-known third constitution that controlled the lives of about 9 million people for a short period of time.
Much of the Confederate Constitution mirrored the Constitution of the United States as it existed at the time, with bigger differences in the matters of slavery and states’ rights.
In 1860, there were more than 9 million people, including 3 million slaves, living in the states and territories that would leave the Union, compared with 22 million people outside those areas.
The document was drawn up and approved just a week after Abraham Lincoln became president of the United States. There were seven southern states that had seceded at the time, and a total of 13 would eventually sign the Confederate constitution.
At first glance, much of the Confederate document was taken directly from the U.S. Constitution.
Link: Read Confederate Constitution
But there were several passages related to slavery that were much different. The Confederate version used the word “slaves,” unlike the U.S. Constitution. One article banned any Confederate state from making slavery illegal. Another ensured that slave owners could travel between Confederate states with their slaves.
The Confederate constitution also accounted for slaves as three-fifths of a state’s population (like the U.S. Constitution did at the time), and it required that any new territory acquired by the nation allow slavery.
In other ways, the Confederate constitution was closer to the Articles of Confederation, which preceded the U.S. Constitution–it was focused on states’ rights.
The Confederate preamble begins, “We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character…”
The U.S. Constitution starts with the more familiar, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…”
http://news.yahoo.com/looking-back-confederate-constitution-103819503.html