Stewart K. answered • 08/27/23
AP, Research Paper, and Classroom History, Gov, and Geo Tutoring
The authors of the CSA constitution were former US federal officeholders, for the most part. They intended for the CSA to function as they believed the US was supposed to function before the Civil War, though they included changes to make their preferred interpretation of the US Constitution explicit (and reject competing interpretations from the northern Republican opponents). They did not want a strong federal government, although they realized that war was possible and preserved the president's war powers in the new constitution. They included elements from a rejected set of proposed constitutional amendments from Kentucky Senator Crittenden, specifically a protection for slavery in any CSA state unless all states agreed to abolish the institution. This made explicit and strengthened the protections for slavery that they thought the US Constitution had included but northern states had ignored in the period after the Compromise of 1850. Because of the impending war, they knew their country would need a standing army and navy and so they duplicated the provisions of the US Constitution allowing a regular Army, although in principle they would have preferred national security based on citizen militias.
