The Confederate States of America’s constitution.
http://www.libs.uga.edu/darchive/hargrett/const/trans.html
Section 9 is most interesting…especially #1…<hr>
- The importation of negroes of the African race, from any foreign country, other than the slaveholding States or Territories of
the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the
same.<hr>
Do I read this right? There were to be no more importation of slaves? They were just going to go with the one’s they had? And their offspring.?
The rest of section 9 contains basically the original bill of rights.
The slave trade was abolished in the early 1800’s; the South had been relying on the ones they had for quite a while.
What I find interesting is the statement that the Confederate Constitution was drafted “in order to form a permanent federal government[,]” and the lack of any mechanism by which states could leave this new union. I’ve read where the right to secession was considered a given, and thus didn’t need to be mentioned…but under the circumstances, you’d think somebody would have insisted on it.
(And, as I recall, at least one state governor–Brown, of Georgia–threatened to secession from the Confederacy.)
The importation of slaves was outlawed once it was determined that the slave-owners had a large enough supply to breed their own. No altruism was ever intended, believe me.
The Confederates also had a 6-year, one-term presidency, and the line-item veto.
If the Confederacy had restarted the slave trade, I believe its chances of getting any support from Europe would have evaporated all together. I doubt that the British and French would have looked kindly on further exportation of people from their colonies.
As soon as the Federal Congress was allowed to pass a law banning the importation of slaves in 1808, it did and that obviously required some Southern support.
My theory as to why the Confederacy maintained the ban on the importation of slaves is this:
Power was in the hands of existing slaveholders, i.e. plantation owners, who already had “breeding stock”. Re-starting the slave trade would have reduced the value of their slaves and given them competition in the form of those who were in a better position to enter this trans-atlantic market.
Anyone confirm of deny this theory?
I think it is more likely that the CSA wanted to be recognized by England as a legitimate country. Allowing the importation of slaves would have made it more difficult to aquire relations with certain european nations. I think eventually the CSA would have ended slavery on its own like many other countries did. Heck, slavery was on its way out until the invention of the cotton gin.
Marc