The Constitutional Origins of the American Civil War

Abstract

From the antebellum era to the present, Americans have been devoted to their two founding documentsthe Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. If there is one thing that generations of Americans could agree on, it was the nobility of the Declaration and the Constitution. While these two documents are frequently conflated by the general public, 1 editors of leading national newspapers, 2 and even a few scholars, 3 they are actually quite different. Where the Declaration asserted that the thirteen British colonies were "Free and Independent States," the Constitution would make those states into a "more perfect Union." Where the Declaration soared on the rhetoric of natural rights ideology, the Constitution plodded along with the dry legal jargon of a bill of sale. Where the Declaration was largely the work of a lone (slaveholding) genius written in just a few days, the Constitution was the product of a series of committees that haggled over each clause for several months. Where the Declaration appealed to "mankind" to overthrow "any Form of Government" that was oppressive, the Constitution was organized by elites to "insure domestic Tranquility." In short, the Declaration was philosophical, universal, and inspirational, while the Constitution was legalistic, specific, and prosaic. 4