State’s Rights
One of the leading arguments for secession was that each state voluntarily entered its contract with the Union and thus each state retained the right to voluntarily leave it, based on the sovereignty of its people. It has been argued that this adherence to the rights of individual states over the authority of a central government is a leading cause of the failure of the Confederacy.
Both President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Stephens were elected to single six year terms of office under the Confederate Constitution. Davis took many steps to centralize authority, such as the conscription laws, over which he was opposed by several state governors and his Vice President, who called Davis’s usurpation of authority tyrannical. “History proved the dangers of such unchecked authority,” said Stephens in opposition to a strong central government.
By 1863 some governor’s opposition to conscription had led them to deny the use of troops from their state by the central government, claiming that they were needed defend against local threats. When the draft exemption for newspaper editors and reporters was eliminated many states protested that it was a thinly veiled attempt to stifle dissent by sending editors into the Army.
Despite the wide range of political differences in the Confederate Congress and throughout its government, the emergence of organized political parties did not take place in the Confederacy. Without a two party system the debate during the Congressional elections of 1863 were largely without any national, or even regional focus, and instead concentrated on narrow personal levels.
Jefferson Davis was a former US Senator and Secretary of War and was well aware of the need to prosecute a major war through an unbending, united effort. His attempt to consolidate the power he needed to do so made him largely unpopular as President of the Confederacy, and the growing shortages at home and military failures after 1863 further eroded his authority and popularity.