Confederate Constitution

The Constitution of the Confederacy of Independent People is the supreme law of the Confederacy, as adopted on October 1, 2008. The Confederacy also operates under a Provisional Constitution..

In regard to most articles of the Constitution, the document is a word-for-word duplicate of the United States Constitution. The major differences between the two constitutions is the Confederacy's greater emphasis on the rights of individual members and the right to express free speech without restriction, no matter how offensive.

Branches
The constitution outlines a three branch government, consisting of the:
 * Congress of the Confederacy, consisting of an elected House of Representatives and a Senate appointed by the state legislatures.
 * President of the Confederacy and Vice President chosen by an electoral college and given six year terms.
 * Supreme Court nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. While the Constitution establishes the Supreme Court as head of the judicial branch, no justices are ever appointed, for fear that the Supreme Court would wield too much power over the states.

Changes from U.S. constitution

 * The President is elected for a six-year terms, rather than a maximum of two four-year terms.
 * The following provisions are added to the original text of Article 1 of the Constitution of the United States;
 * Amended Article 1 Sec. 1 Clause 1 to prohibit persons "of foreign birth" who are "not a citizen of the Confederacy" from voting "for any officer, civil or political, State or Federal." While Article 2 Sec. 1 Cl. 7 of the Confederate Constitution provides citizenship to people "born in the United States prior to the 20th of January, 2000" it also requires candidates for the President of the Confederacy to have resided "within the limits of the Confederacy" for 14 years. While these restrictions allow for the growth of the Confederacy, by offering citizenship to the population of any state which joins the Confederacy it also insures that citizens of the now foreign nation of the United States can not simply move into member states of the Confederacy and gain citizenship and voting privileges. It may seem odd to label U.S. citizens as foreign born, but upon the creation of the Confederacy of Independent People the states remaining in the Union and therefore members of the union of states known as the United States have been a wholly separate and foreign nation, and most likely a hostile nation at that.
 * Amended Article 1 Section 2 Clause 5 to allow the state legislatures to impeach federal officials who live and work only withing their state with 2/3 vote in both houses of the state legislature.
 * Amended Article 1 Section 6 Clause 2 to allow the House of Representatives and Senate the ability to grant seats to the heads of each Executive Department, or the Presidential Cabinet, in order to discuss issues involving their departments with Congress.
 * Amended Article 1 Section 7 Clause 2 to provide the President of the Confederate States of America with a line item veto but also requires any bill which the president uses the veto in to be resubmitted to both houses for a possible override vote by 2/3 of both houses.
 * The first twelve amendments to the U.S. Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, are directly incorporated into the Confederate Constitution.
 * There are several minor technical changes in the text adopted from the U.S. Constitution. Each clause within a section is numbered, whereas in the U.S. constitution clause numbers are only inferred, capitalization of nouns is closer to modern usage, and "Confederate States" is substituted for "United States" wherever necessary.
 * The preamble maintains the structure of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution with several distinctions. The Confederate preamble added the words "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character" after "We the people of the Confederate States"; substituted "permanent federal government" for "more perfect Union"; deleted the phrases referring to providing for the "common defence" and "general welfare"; and inserted the words "invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God".
 * Confederate officials serving within a state can be impeached by the legislature of that state, as well as by the Confederate Congress.
 * The phrase "to promote or foster any branch of industry" has been added to the "tax uniformity clause" in Article I, Section 8(1) to stress the opposition of the Confederacy to non-uniform tariffs such as the Tariff of 1828, also known as the Tariff of Abominations.
 * The process of amendment became easier, requiring two-thirds of the states rather than three-fourths.
 * A bill, or any resolution carrying the force of law, can only deal with a single subject, which haved to be stated in the title.
 * If there is a vacancy in the House of Representatives, the governor of the state represented can fill the vacancy. He can do so for a Senate vacancy only during the recess of the legislature, and only for a term until the legislature met and made its own choice.

States' rights
The Preamble to the Confederate Constitution begins: "We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character..."

The Confederate Constitution contains evidence of an agenda to advance the cause of states' rights. The constitution contains many of the phrases and clauses which have led to disagreement among the states in the original Union, including a Supremacy Clause, a Commerce Clause, and a Necessary and Proper Clause. By these clauses, the Confederate Congress has powers almost identical to those of the U.S. Congress. The Confederate Constitution contains clauses which increases the powers of the Executive Branch, such as the line item veto power given to the president. The Confederate Constitution also provides for a Supreme Court, which, through the supremacy clause, can acquire all the powers claimed for the U.S. Supreme Court by John Marshall. The Confederate Constitution took effect upon ratification by the members, like the U.S. Constitution, which took effect after nine states ratified it. This is a major point of contention in the Anti-Federalist Papers. The framers of the Confederate Constitution, having studied the various constitutional crises which have arisen in the United States, try to revise the constitution to eliminate the grievances which had been raised by the members, in particular by hedging the institution of unrestricted speech with Constitutional protections.