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Another nugget for the grinding mill of this forum.
This analysis is unusual in that it seems to suggest less State Rights for CSA States than other CSA constitutional analysis.
Continuity in Secession: The Case of the Confederate Constitution
CHICAGO
PUBLIC LAW AND LEGAL THEORY WORKING PAPER NO. 512
CONTINUITY IN SECESSION: THE CASE OF THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION
Alison L. LaCroix
THE LAW SCHOOL
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
February 2015
from the same individuals who felt they had no choice but to break apart the Union: the
leaders of the Confederate States of America. In March 1861, the first seven states to
secede from the Union adopted a constitution that looked remarkably similar to the U.S.
Constitution, the founding document of the republic from which they had just departed.
Four states (Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas) had not yet seceded but
would soon join the Confederacy, over the protests of the Constitutional Union and Whig
parties within each state. So strong was the force of what I have termed the “interbellum
Constitution,”5 then, that it transcended the would-be national boundary created by the
departure of some of its members. Moreover, the authority of the text and structures set
forth in the U.S. Constitution was viewed by many Confederate leaders as controlling,
even as they attempted to launch their new polity.
This analysis is unusual in that it seems to suggest less State Rights for CSA States than other CSA constitutional analysis.
Continuity in Secession: The Case of the Confederate Constitution
CHICAGO
PUBLIC LAW AND LEGAL THEORY WORKING PAPER NO. 512
CONTINUITY IN SECESSION: THE CASE OF THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION
Alison L. LaCroix
THE LAW SCHOOL
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
February 2015
The best evidence of this Constitution-dominated mindset comes, paradoxically,By the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the national obsession with identifying
a single true meaning for the federal union constructed by the Constitution had spread to
observers elite and ordinary; northern, southern, eastern, and western; wealthy and poor;
male and female; black and white. Historian Arthur Bestor has argued that the
Constitution was the “channel” through which the many political, economic, social, and
moral controversies of the period flowed, and that the war was therefore a largely
inevitable constitutional crisis.4 This essay argues, however, that constitutional text and
modes of thought were more than a channel that configured other, more foundational
debates. The words of the Constitution, its ways of framing questions, and indeed its
very structure dominated the American consciousness to such a degree that even
secessionists could not escape it. On the contrary, they sought to embrace it.
from the same individuals who felt they had no choice but to break apart the Union: the
leaders of the Confederate States of America. In March 1861, the first seven states to
secede from the Union adopted a constitution that looked remarkably similar to the U.S.
Constitution, the founding document of the republic from which they had just departed.
Four states (Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Arkansas) had not yet seceded but
would soon join the Confederacy, over the protests of the Constitutional Union and Whig
parties within each state. So strong was the force of what I have termed the “interbellum
Constitution,”5 then, that it transcended the would-be national boundary created by the
departure of some of its members. Moreover, the authority of the text and structures set
forth in the U.S. Constitution was viewed by many Confederate leaders as controlling,
even as they attempted to launch their new polity.