How did the idea of states' rights hurt the government of the Confederacy?

Answer 1

Good question,
Often the Civil War is viewed without this import fact being taken into consideration. The confederacy rebelled for the over state rights verses a strong central federal government, and yet in order to survive as a nation had to succumb to that very idea under the confederacy. The demise of the confederacy was pre programmed.
The confederate states rebelled against the union under the idea that the authority of the individual states was greater than the authority off the federal government. The contentious issue was slavery. The confederacy believed that this issue should be resolved by the states, the Union believed that this was a constitutional issue and therefore the federal government had the authority.
The Confederacy took this into the rebellion; it was extremely difficult to set up the government of the CSA, and the powers and authority that the CSA had. Raising taxes, duty tariffs etc, all were issues in which the Confederate states and the confederacy had extreme difficulty in resolving.
This division within the confederacy created great problems in financing the war effort, creating, training, equipping and paying for the armies, and navy of the Confederacy. The result was that the war was executed regional and almost independently, unity and an overall strategy. Armies were taking orders from state governors; armies were not working in unison, or coordinating actions. Fortunately for the south the northern military leaders failed to listen to Lincoln and did the same thing. Actions were broken into regions and the various Union Armies did not have a coordinate plan of action and tended to operate, move and maneuver at the commanding officer's choosing. It was not until Grant that the Union Army had a grand strategy that encompassed the entire war effort.
This effect of the division of power can clearly be seen in the fall of Tennessee, and Kentucky. Of how the confederate troops were starving and yet huge warehouses and stockpiles of food were found just nearby, the owners and the states would not give up these supplies unless paid for.

Answer 2

They left the Union because they wanted to each have their laws be sovereign (on a state level). Ok, fine in theory... When they set up the Confederate States of America, guess what they ran into? Good old Jefferson Davis had a hard time keeping a leash on each state. Each state tried to continue governing itself, soon disagreements arose between some of the states, and the confederacy had a hard time centralizing its war efforts. Davis waited until it was too late to try to assign someone else the job of organizing the army - he had been trying to do it all himself. It kind of made Davis look like a hypocrit - trying to establish a "national" government, when it was a federal government that they were against in the first place.

Answer 3

The CSA quickly realized that to win a war of conventional means against the North, they needed military forces and solid infrastructure. They realized that the only way to have a nation was with a solid central government, which was completely against their doctrine of states' rights.

Aside from supporting the soldiers in the field, the Confederacy realized they needed to continue producing crops to feed everyone and supply those at home also. The problem was, everyoone in their "volunteer" and conscript army was off fighting on the front lines. They had women, children, and elderly raising their crops and attempting to survive. It made for a convoluted mess on the home front. As the home front waned, supplies to the troops followed and the military decline also followed.

In short, states' rights meant a weak central government. In time of war, people have to rely on the federal government to pool resources and make the nation work together. With 11 separate governments trying to make war against the North, the Confederacy found herself becoming another, generally unsuccessful, version of the Union.

Hope that helps! Good luck!

Answer 4

History is something we use to chart, or define what a people was. Personally, it's the kind of people they were, and still are. If you go there today, the evidence is pretty intact. They did it to themselves. They still are. Most of the manpower committed to the military escapades of the Pentagon comes from there. Yes, there's plenty draft prospects in the north, too. But - there they're predisposed. They haven't learned yet that human government is just that. So too much sacrosanct importance is attached to it. Unquestioning. All the way to California. I think Lincoln made a mistake. He should've let them go their own way. They could do it today through legislation. Nobody would interfere.

Answer 5

Because getting all the states' individual governments together on the same page to do anything was virtually impossible.

Answer 6

they wanted to the states to run their own show without the help of the central or federal government helping

Answer 7

Each state felt like it had the right to say how its troops and military units should be committed in the war. the CSA had to negotitate with each governor to put together armies and decide where to commit them in the war.