State Supreme Courts and the Confederate Constitution
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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: “A LIGHT WHICH REVEALS ITS TRUE MEANING”: STATE SUPREME COURTS AND THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION Donald Louis Stelluto, Jr., Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation directed by: Professor Herman J. Belz Departm ent of History During the Civil War, Confederate wartime legislation, chiefly conscription, exemption, and impressments statutes, raised fundamental constitutional issues. These actions by the national government became a prolific source of litigation in many southern states. Yet, in the absence of a national Confederate Supreme Court, it fell to state supreme courts and state jurists to resolve these challenges to the national government’s exercise of constitutional war powers and to enunciate key constitutional principles and explain the tenets of Confederate political philosophy. As a result, southern state supreme courts became the primary venues in which national constitutional issues were adjudicated. The constitutional purposes and goals of the Confederacy were national - rather than state -oriented and provided for limited but effective national government, a truly federal union in which state and national governments were to both operate effectively and energetically, and within the national gover nment, the powers of the national government were to be separated to promote efficiency and prevent usurpation. In these cases, state supreme courts enunciated key Confederate constitutional doctrines and principles n amely, limited government or constituti onalism, federalism, the separation of powers, and national purposes. State jurists established that the Confederate Constitution was a substantive and purposeful constitutive consisting of conservative principles and innovative forms and features. Operat ing as a de facto supreme court, these state supreme courts considered scores of wartime decisions. Consistently, across jurisdictions, these justices rejected states’ rights as the political philosophy of the Confederacy, they upheld the exercise of constitutional Confederate war powers within a carefully articulated doctrine of federalism, they limited national government within its delegated authority without handicapping its capabilities to fulfill its duties, and maintained a strict separation of gove rnment powers between the three national branches . State supreme court cases have been largely ignored by Civil War scholars. However, these decisions reveal the substantive and normative nature of constitutional principles in the Confederacy. The specif ic holdings in these cases contradict earlier historiographical understanding s of the Confederacy as a loose confederation of states with each acting independently . “A LIGHT WHICH REVEALS ITS TRUE MEANING”: STATE SUPREME COURTS AND THE CONFEDERATE CONSTITUTION By Donald Louis Stelluto, Jr. Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2004 Advisory Committee: Professor Herman J. Belz Professor Emeritus George H. Callcott Professor James A. Henretta Professor Wayne V. McIntosh Associate Professor Whitman H. Ridgway Copyright by Donald Louis Stelluto, Jr. 2004 For my babydoll, Anna Christina, and her brothers and sisters to come. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A synthesis of this scope is not easy and its completion was made possible only with the assistance and encouragement of some ver y special people in my life. This work started as an idea originally discussed with my teacher, friend, and colleague in California, Professor Gordon Morris Bakken. Gordon has always been a scholar and a gentleman and without Gordon’s ever -present encoura gement to press forward with my ideas and analysis, this would have been a much more difficult and certainly less exciting project to complete. My advisor and friend, Professor Herman Belz, has left an indelible mark upon my dissertation, my scholarship, and my teaching. As a scholar and advisor, Professor Belz possesses a very special combination of intellectual rigor, probing analysis, perceptive insight, and skillful questioning. Because of his inspiration and intellectual challenge, I have become a much more conceptual thinker and teacher. I have benefited from his teaching and his friendship and for both I am grateful to him. Good friends have always been a blessing, especially Irene Matz, my longtime friend and colleague at Cal State Fullerton. Her support has been invaluable. She has always has always been a source of encouragement and prayer, as has Janan Zonker, another colleague with whose help the preparation of this manuscript, especially the technical requirements, was made easier and much more fun. An individual to whom I owe a profound debt of gratitude is my fellow graduate student, colleague, former boss, and friend, Dr. Michael A. Powell. Michael has been an invaluable friend who through his compassion and his scholarly rigor always iii ch allenged or inspired me to think anew and to excel. He has earned my profound respect and gratitude. My friendship with him and his entire family (Barb, Chelsea, Stephen, and Annie) has been a blessing that I never anticipated when coming to the Universi ty of Maryland but because of which I have been made the better for having them as friends. We have much to do now, socially and professionally, as friends and colleagues. For the past six years I have been aided by two administrators at California State University, Fullerton. Margaret A. Atwell, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Cheryl Perreira, Senior Director for Business Planning and Improvement, as my supervisors and my friends, have provided their unqualified support and encouragem ent throughout the dissertation stage. Without their continuous support I would never have been able to obtain leave from my home institution to complete research in the South and to compile my thoughts. My parents, Donald, Sr. and Rosemary have been an unceasing source of strength, comfort, patience, and assistance throughout the doctoral program and have been charged with a wide variety of copying, compiling, and proofreading tasks that I am sure they never anticipated when I began the program. They, together, with my sister Carolyn, and my cousins, aunts, uncles, and my two goddaughters, Kassidy and Kennedy, have never failed in their support of this dissertation, even when the issues of federalism and secondary legislative functions made no sense to them. It is to my family, including my daughter, Anna Christina, that I dedicate this work. Finally, in a most special way, I thank Maria, Sede della Sapienza, for her unceasing love, care and comfort. She has never failed me. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I : Introduction .............................................................................................1 Chapter II: Conservative Constitutional Commitments .......................................... 43 A Confusing Historiogra phical Tradition.....................................................49 Commitment to Preserve Republican Principles ..........................................59 Confederate Commitment to Limited Government......................................79 Chapter III: The Commitment to Purposeful Innovations....................................... 97 Innovative Constitutionalism ......................................................................102 More Effective and Managerial National Government ..............................107 Purposeful Government and Constitutional Duties ....................................116 Permanent Fundamental Law for A National Community .........................129 Chapter IV: Preserving Balanced Authori ty .......................................................... 144 Historical Importance of Federalism .........................................................150 Separating Spheres and “Balanced” Federalism ........................................160 Chapter V: Feder alism and National Purposes ...................................................... 180 The Preamble, Sovere ignty, and National Purposes ..................................182 Superior Duty to Fulfill National Purposes ................................................188 National Purposes and Defining Citizenship ..............................................198 Invoca tion of the Supremacy Clause ..........................................................204 Chapter VI: Separating Functio ns to Fulfill National Goals ..................................212 A Bar Against Usurpation .........................................................................214 Sec ondary Legislative Functions................................................................231 Effect ive and Energetic Government .........................................................243 Chapter VII: Conclusion ........................................................................................257 Appendix: The Confederate Constitution...............................................................270 Bibliography ..........................................................................................................284 v Introduction “A Light Which Reveals Its True Meanings” On February 18, 1861, on the steps of the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery, Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as Provisional President of the Confederate States of America. As he approached the capitol, crowds reportedly numbering up to ten thousand cheered loudly for him and he was, at times, showered