The Confederate Constitution: What your elementary school didn’t teach you
At
the start of 1861, several Southern states seceded to form their own
union under the Constitution of the Confederate States. The Confederate
Constitution was just a modified version of the original U.S.
Constitution, but the edits were significant.
The
South seceded largely over economic issues. Heavy-hitting tariffs on
manufactured goods protected Northern industries while making Southern
costs skyrocket. Meanwhile, 90 percent of the Union’s revenue came from
those tariffs and then was spent to help the North.
Slavery
certainly was a factor in the Civil War. But it was partly the economic
pressures on the South that made slavery an issue.
Other
countries were compensating slave owners, using government revenue to
ease the transition away from slavery. In the United States, however,
the North was tightening the economic screws. It exploited the South
with tariffs and spent the revenue on its own largess.
Two
days before Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861, Northern congressmen
passed the Morrill Tariff. It steeply raised tariffs on politically
popular Northern manufactured goods.
Previous
tariffs had been a percentage of the purchase price. The practice of
providing a phony invoice for a lower amount alleviated much of the
tariff’s harm. The Morrill Tariff removed this possibility. It required a
specific duty per quantity of the imported item regardless of the
purchase price.
With the South
peacefully seceded, it was impossible to count on its cooperation. But
Lincoln was expected to enforce the Morrill Tariff. A group of Virginian
commissioners were deputized to determine if Lincoln would use force
and suggested he abandon Fort Sumter.
Lincoln
responded, “If I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as
well shut up housekeeping [a euphemism for federal spending] at once!”
With 90 percent of his revenue coming from tariffs collected in the
South, the Southern secession meant the union’s budget would take a cut.
He
went on to say, “But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at
Montgomery?” — meaning the Confederate constitutional convention. “Am I
to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry,
with their ten-percent tariff? What, then, would become of my tariff?”
Just a month before the start of the hostilities of the Civil War,
Lincoln had tariff revenue on his mind.
Meanwhile,
the Confederate states correctly judged the need for additional checks
on the federal government’s power to tax some while benefiting others.
The Confederacy is often portrayed as the villain in popular media. But
the Confederate edits to the Constitution would have helped prevent a
lot of the federal mischief we’ve experienced.
The
Confederate states added a prohibition on tariffs protecting specific
industries and required all such taxes to be uniform throughout the
country. Such a law removed the special-interest lobbying and patronage
that elected Lincoln. It was based on the more general principle that if
the power doesn’t exist to discriminate among specific industries,
there is no incentive to buy the right to wield that power for your own
industry’s benefit.
They also removed the general welfare justification for collecting taxes; only providing for the common defense remained.
The
general welfare clause was originally intended to limit the power of
Congress and prohibit it from providing for special interest groups. It
was included as a summary version of the 17 specific powers immediately
following it. James Madison, principal author of the Constitution,
argued that no one would misunderstand the general welfare clause and
give Congress unlimited power. The specific limited powers, he argued,
were “not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon.”
Prior
to 1936, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed in multiple cases. Then Franklin
D. Roosevelt packed the Supreme Court with six extra justices. The
court finally justified his 1937 Social Security Act and a host of other
New Deal legislation under the misunderstanding that Madison had
thought impossible. Since then, the general welfare clause has been used
to justify nearly every aspect of the federal budget.
The
Confederate Constitution added much language to block any laws intended
to “facilitate commerce.” Much of the tariff revenue collected from the
South had been used to build railroads and canals in the North. In
other words, one man’s money was being used to better another man’s
state. The Confederate Constitution solved this problem as well.
To
the article giving Congress the power to regulate commerce, the
Confederate Constitution added “but neither this, nor any other clause
contained in the constitution, shall ever be construed to delegate the
power to Congress to appropriate money for any internal improvement
intended to facilitate commerce.”
This additional clause
was intended to stop the federal government from taking the money
collected from everyone and use it to pay for one region’s development.
The
only internal improvement the Confederate Constitution justified was
work on harbors and rivers. However, such improvements had to be paid
for using money collected from the people navigating them.
In
the U.S. Congress, congressional favors were and still are passed by
the slimmest of majorities. However, the Confederate Constitution solved
this by requiring a two-thirds super-majority of a congressional vote
before any federal funds could be spent. Its framers believed that the
more impediments to legislative spending, the better. If spending were
disliked by as many as a third of Congress today, it is likely we would
be better off.
The CSA founders
also anticipated the congressional shenanigans of hiding large
special-interest spending projects inside otherwise helpful legislation.
They added a presidential line-item veto, writing, “The President may
approve any appropriation and disapprove any other appropriation in the
same bill.”
Finally, the
Confederate Constitution changed the term of the president to six years
but prohibited the chief executive from serving two terms. Many of our
former presidents have agreed with this idea.
In
his first year, a president is trying to learn the job. The next three
years he is running for re-election. Only in his second term, if then,
is he taking the long view and thinking about his place in history.
We
are thankful the Civil War ended the abominable practice of slavery in
the United States. However, our gratitude for this social change causes
us to overlook what the Confederate Constitution had to offer.
The
Civil War began over exploitive protectionist tariffs. On this specific
issue, the South might very well have had the higher moral ground.
Southerners wove some of their improvements into the Confederate
Constitution. Our slavery-focused retelling of the Civil War loses sight
of issues of freedom we’ve lost with the Confederate Constitution.
David
John Marotta is president of Marotta Wealth Management Inc. of
Charlottesville. University of Virginia graduate Megan Russell, systems
analyst for the company, also contributed to this commentary. Questions
should be sent to emarotta.com or Marotta Wealth Management Inc., One Village Green Circle, Suite 100, Charlottesville, Va. 22903-4619
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