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Thanks for your thoughtful message. I appreciate the tone, as some FReepers can get unreasonable on this topic.

Withou rehashing so many previous threads, it bears noting that the Confederate government was far more centralized and powerful relative to the states than was the federal government until the 1930s. Also, civil liberties were much more infringed upon in the Confederacy than they were in the North at the time.

I am more for state and local autonomy than even most FReepers, but use of the term "states rights" (coined by John Calhoun as a euphemism for the right to oppress black people) and of Confederate ideology are certain losers, as experience has shown.

"some FReepers can get unreasonable on this topic." as well as do you by virtue of your comments:

"the Confederate government was far more centralized and powerful relative to the states than was the federal government"

Not true. At the time of the creation of the Confederate government in 2/61, befitting the new Confederacy’s claim to represent the true principles of the US Constitution which Northern politicians had trampled upon, most of the provisional constitution was copied verbatim from the original document. So, in principle and on paper, it was no more restrictive than the US Constitution.

In the preamble to the Confederate Constitution, the framers implicitly allowed for secession by emphasizing the understanding of each State’s sovereign status.

The issue of States’ rights as a major cause of the secession of the Southern States became clear in the issue of the Confederate States Supreme Court. Although Article III of the C. S. Constitution established the Supreme Court, federal encroachment upon States’ rights fostered by rulings of the US Supreme Court were still fresh in the minds of the C.S. Congress.

As a result of this, the actual establishment of the C.S. Supreme Court never took place. Thus, there was no opportunity for a Supreme Court to give itself the power to interpret the Constitutionality of action of other government branches and people as had happened in the Union.

As in the United States, the federal government of the Confederate States was prohibited from interfering with slavery within the States. The States of the Confederacy, however, were not constitutionally required to recognize or continue the practice of slavery within their own borders.

The consensus, as voiced by Senator Albert G. Brown of Mississippi, was that “each state is sovereign within its own limits; and that each for itself can abolish or establish slavery for itself”.

Governmental intervention was less, taxes were lower, the President was limited to one term, and the general welfare clause allowing for government to business subsidy was eliminated.

So, there was a very big difference after all. Your contention is bogus.

And regarding this whopper------"but use of the term 'states rights' (coined by John Calhoun as a euphemism for the right to oppress black people)"---you well know that the term was coined in the debates held in the meetings on the Articles of Confederation, ten years before Calhoun was born.