Difference in Governments?

Question

Explore how a confederate form of government differs from the concept of federalism.

Answer 1

The Confederate States Constitution provides much insight into the motivations for secession from the Union. While much of it was a word-for-word duplicate of the United States Constitution, it contained several explicit protections of the institution of slavery, though international slave trading was prohibited. It also reflected a stronger philosophy of states' rights, curtailing the power of the central authority: the Confederate government was prohibited from instituting protective tariffs or from using revenues collected in one state for funding internal improvements in another state. In contrast with the largely secular language of the United States Constitution, the Confederate Constitution overtly asked God's blessing ("invoking the favor of Almighty God.")

The constitution did not specifically include a provision allowing states to secede; the Preamble spoke of each state "acting in its sovereign and independent character" but also of the formation of a "permanent federal government". The Southern leaders met in Montgomery, Alabama, to write their constitution.

The President of the Confederate States of America was to be elected to a six-year term and could not be reelected. The only president was Jefferson Davis; the Confederate States of America was defeated by the federal government before he completed his term. One unique power granted to the Confederate president was the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto, a power held by some state governors. The Confederate Congress could overturn either the general or the line item vetoes with the same two-thirds majorities that are required in the U.S. Congress. In addition, appropriations not specifically requested by the executive branch required passage by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress.

The term federalism is also used to describe a system of government in which sovereignty is constitutionally divided between a central governing authority and constituent political units (like states or provinces), Federalism is the system in which the power to govern is shared between the national & state governments, creating what is often called a federation.

Answer 2

Confederate is kind of independent countries who are united to support each other, like the US was before the civil war and the EU theoretically is now. Switzerland was confederate until recently.

Federal is more what the US is now, with the states or provinces having some independent power, but unable to leave the union and tied to the centre of power. The power isn't really centralized, but there is no question that it is one country rather than a group of allied countries who agrees on a few things.

The words confederate and federal have nothing to do with slavery, and are by no means limited to the USA. However, in the US, since some States rights activists (which is pro confederate) were also for segregation and from the South, it's easy to see why people might mix up the two.

However, anti-federalists in the beginning of America's history were those who opposed slavery and saw federalism as a slave-trader institution. And some thought that the North would leave out of the slavery question, after the (at that time) Federalist Supreme Court ruled that slaves were property that could be carried as slaves through non-slave states and remain property.