Why Did the Confederate Constitution Have a Single-Term Presidency?

[Belisarius II]

The CSA wouldn't have any Territories, just the 11 States that succeeded. The Southerners always talked about taking Cuba. An independent CSA might invade Cuba, and annex it. Cuba had slavery till 1886, so they'd just be taking over an existing system. The only other nation I can think of that still had slavery was Brazil, I guess they'd be best buddy's.

 

[GauchoBadger]

After a couple of generations, slaves and poor whites are going to start reading Marx and put two and two together...

Reading Marx or just hearing of inspired ideologies going about, considering the possibility of censorship imposed by the interests of the CSA government? Marxism and marxian communism explicitly require an industrial working class as a prerequisite, something a surviving CSA would likely lack. This hasn't prevented OTL agrarian economy states from adopting the label, of course, but the CSA's especially harsh social stratification would make more unusual or religious ideologies more likely to thrive among dissidents.

 

[Belisarius II]

They were explicitly afraid of a strong, central executive. There was a very recent -- in fact: current -- example of that exact threat: his name was Abraham Lincoln. In a wider sense, the entire ideology of the Republican Party embodied this existential threat to the notion of state sovereignty. (And whatever else we may say about the Confederates, the gradual but ultimately immense increase in size of the Federal government since the essentially 'minarchist' days of the Antebellum period certainly demonstrates that fears of encroaching Federal power weren't exactly insubstantial.)

What I'm saying is: the Confederates knew that the central power would increasingly be dominated by the North, that (per the Republican Party's essentially neo-Hamiltonian ideals) it would increasingly amass power, and that it would ultimately use this power to abolish slavery (and all other elements of states' rights, but for the Southern elite, slavery was the Big Thing). This looming threat is what prompted secession in the first place, and it's what informed all their revisions to the Constitution: explictly small government, explicitly states' rights, explictly pro-slavery (the Big Thing, superseding states' rights), and explicitly against a too-powerful executive.

From their perspective, it made perfect sense.

Your right these issues went back to the beginning of the Republic, Hamilton vs Jefferson. The Federalists had to win because on the central tenants if you wanted a successful economy they had to prevail. You needed to assume a national debt to establish national credit. You needed a National Bank to regulate currency, and the money supply. You needed internal improvements to develop the economy. When the Jeffersonians took power they acted like Federalists, They bought Louisiana, rechartered the Bank of the United States, dug the Erie Cannel.

Look what happened when the Jacksonians took over, and killed the Bank, and fought against internal improvements. The panic of 1837, the worst economic recession until the 1930's. Whigs vs Democrats, then Republicans vs Democrats. Lincoln said "I am always a Whig." Today we still fight a lot of the same battles, with cultural issues intertwined in their fabric. 2020 sees a deeply divided Red State vs Blue State competing world views. So I guess what else could we expect, it was ever so.

 

[Pelranius]

Reading Marx or just hearing of inspired ideologies going about, considering the possibility of censorship imposed by the interests of the CSA government? Marxism and marxian communism explicitly require an industrial working class as a prerequisite, something a surviving CSA would likely lack. This hasn't prevented OTL agrarian economy states from adopting the label, of course, but the CSA's especially harsh social stratification would make more unusual or religious ideologies more likely to thrive among dissidents.

It would be a hybrid of conventional Marxism and agriculturally focused variants like Maoism.

Confederate censorship would come up, but eventually an underground circulation of Marxism is going to take hold (short of the CSA turning totalitarian enough to inspect and successfully discover the subversive literature)

 

[Slan]

One of the complaints about two four year terms of the President is that in the first four years Presidents sometimes decide issues based on the idea of setting themselves up for getting reelected again. Another idea is that the six-year term and only once is that it keeps the President focused on running things and not on will I get elected again.

That's actually a very good point. You can learn good things even from evil guys.

 

[Belisarius II]

Reading Marx or just hearing of inspired ideologies going about, considering the possibility of censorship imposed by the interests of the CSA government? Marxism and marxian communism explicitly require an industrial working class as a prerequisite, something a surviving CSA would likely lack. This hasn't prevented OTL agrarian economy states from adopting the label, of course, but the CSA's especially harsh social stratification would make more unusual or religious ideologies more likely to thrive among dissidents.

If you could have a Marxist Revolution in China, or Russia you could have one in the CSA. Given any opportunity where the system is distracted it can explode. The French Revolution had many proto Marxist tenants, class warfare, anti clerical, in the Middle Ages there were people called Levelers, the Ancient World knew slave revolts. The CSA would've been moving in the direction of the Roman Republic, concentration of wealth, slaves displacing free workers, weakening of democratic institutions, an army commanded by aristocrats. I've always said the CSA would've become the Greatest Banana Republic in the world. Losing the Civil War was the best thing that could've happened to them, it saved them from themselves.

 

[Belisarius II]

Insane Ranter said:
One of the complaints about two four year terms of the President is that in the first four years Presidents sometimes decide issues based on the idea of setting themselves up for getting reelected again. Another idea is that the six-year term and only once is that it keeps the President focused on running things and not on will I get elected again.

That's actually a very good point. You can learn good things even from evil guys.

A debatable question, it has merits on both sides. A one 6 year term president is a lame duck on day one. They have no opportunity to mobilize the people, to renew their mandate from them, and confirm their support for their agenda. A popular president running for reelection has some coattails, an unpopular one drags his party down with them.

 

[dcharles]

They were explicitly afraid of a strong, central executive.

Don't know about that. The executive had a line-item veto, the executive had representation in the legislature, and by removing the threat of losing an election, it removes a veto point in their constitutional system. Furthermore, by eliminating omnibus bills, hamstringing the ability of the legislature to create budget bills--they could only be approved by a two-thirds vote unless the executive requested the money, they lessened the power of the legislative branch. That makes their executive stronger, not weaker.

Indeed, there was a lot of thought in the antebellum South and within the Confederacy that explicitly admired the strong executive of the Second Empire and sought to emulate it. There's a very good book that came out recently about just this subject: Jefferson Davis, Napoleonic France, and the Nature of Confederate Ideology. Check it out.

 

[Deleted member 109224]

How are the slaves supposed to read Marx when there were laws against teaching slaves to read?

 

[Johnrankins]

One of the complaints about two four year terms of the President is that in the first four years Presidents sometimes decide issues based on the idea of setting themselves up for getting reelected again. Another idea is that the six-year term and only once is that it keeps the President focused on running things and not on will I get elected again.

At the time there was unlimited terms, it just didn't happen until FDR.

 

[Johnrankins]

They were explicitly afraid of a strong, central executive. There was a very recent -- in fact: current -- example of that exact threat: his name was Abraham Lincoln. In a wider sense, the entire ideology of the Republican Party embodied this existential threat to the notion of state sovereignty. (And whatever else we may say about the Confederates, the gradual but ultimately immense increase in size of the Federal government since the essentially 'minarchist' days of the Antebellum period certainly demonstrates that fears of encroaching Federal power weren't exactly insubstantial.)

What I'm saying is: the Confederates knew that the central power would increasingly be dominated by the North, that (per the Republican Party's essentially neo-Hamiltonian ideals) it would increasingly amass power, and that it would ultimately use this power to abolish slavery (and all other elements of states' rights, but for the Southern elite, slavery was the Big Thing). This looming threat is what prompted secession in the first place, and it's what informed all their revisions to the Constitution: explictly small government, explicitly states' rights, explictly pro-slavery (the Big Thing, superseding states' rights), and explicitly against a too-powerful executive.

From their perspective, it made perfect sense.

In RL only one side had internal passports, required shippers to carry government goods, required railroads to operate at a loss and controlled prices and it wasn't the Union. Bluntly the CSA was the closest the US got to a Communist Dictatorship.

 

[LNSS]

The CSA could not handle even the weakened late 19th century version of Spain

 

[Johnrankins]

Eventually, CSA agriculture is going to be entirely concentrated in the hands of the big plantation owners (thanks to economies of scale, and after agricultural shocks like the boll weevils, the big planters can buy up all the bankrupt yeoman farms since the big planters and their cronies control all the credit). Displaced lower and middle class farmers can't even get factory work, since a lot of antebellum southern factory work, including the skilled parts, was already being done by slaves.

After a couple of generations, slaves and poor whites are going to start reading Marx and put two and two together...

Hopefully not, they would be merely trading one type of slavery for another .

 

[Johnrankins]

Reading Marx or just hearing of inspired ideologies going about, considering the possibility of censorship imposed by the interests of the CSA government? Marxism and marxian communism explicitly require an industrial working class as a prerequisite, something a surviving CSA would likely lack. This hasn't prevented OTL agrarian economy states from adopting the label, of course, but the CSA's especially harsh social stratification would make more unusual or religious ideologies more likely to thrive among dissidents.

Which didn't stop China and a number of 3rd World countries from imposing Marxism.

 

[Slan]

A debatable question, it has merits on both sides. A one 6 year term president is a lame duck on day one. They have no opportunity to mobilize the people, to renew their mandate from them, and confirm their support for their agenda. A popular president running for reelection has some coattails, an unpopular one drags his party down with them.

At least they will not think about buying favors for reelection, just about their legacy as a one-term president. All the presidents would then have a more long-term orientation regarding their political agenda.

And six-years is worse than eight-years for a man who is trying to corrupt the system and become a wannabe dictator.

Parliamentarian system is still better, though.

 

[dcharles]

GauchoBadger said:
Reading Marx or just hearing of inspired ideologies going about, considering the possibility of censorship imposed by the interests of the CSA government? Marxism and marxian communism explicitly require an industrial working class as a prerequisite, something a surviving CSA would likely lack.

The CS did have IOTL, and likely would have had just as much of a working class in it as there was in Russia.

Remember, having a weak industrial sector compared to the US does not mean that the CS had a weak industrial sector compared with the world.

 

[CivEng]

I am not American but I find it hard to believe that poor whites would see slaves as their brethren. One thing was right in TL191 fascism would be the ideology of poor whites in a surviving CSA in an economical collapse

 

[Pelranius]

I am not American but I find it hard to believe that poor whites would see slaves as their brethren. One thing was right in TL191 fascism would be the ideology of poor whites in a surviving CSA in an economical collapse

Eventually even the most stubborn redeemer/stalwart whatever they call themselves would see by the 1950s that they, their children, grandchildren or great grandchildren are never going to become part of the plantocracy.

 

[Pelranius]

Hopefully not, they would be merely trading one type of slavery for another .

It's certainly better than the previous form of slavery.

 

[dcharles]

The Constitution of the CSA altered very little of the US Constitution except for explicit defenses of state sovereignty, slavery, low tariffs, and other issues central to Confederate political ideology. Why, then, did it change Presidential terms from a (then-unlimited) four-year cycle to a single one of six years? This would be more understandable if there had been recent experience of a strong Presidency, but all the ones since Jackson had been effectively nonentities. Was it just from the supposition that any leader who managed to shepherd the CSA to independence would be electorally unstoppable, so the framers decided to pre-limit him, as it were? Was Presidential term limit reform already a going debate in mid-19th century America that the CSA just decided to use its blank slate to modify?

I mentioned a few of the legal innovations that made the CS executive stronger than the US executive in an earlier post, so I won't re-iterate here, but I think that there are two reasons for lengthening the term of office/ limiting the number of terms.

One, the term limit makes it harder for an already strong executive to accrue more power over time. So partially, it's a way to balance the larger enumerated powers of the office by circumscribing the potential for the accrual of unenumerated powers.

Two, it makes the executive less apt to listen to popular opinion, giving the executive as an individual more freedom of action, and it makes the people in the aggregate less powerful, which jibes with the fears of Whig and Whig-adjacent Democrats.