Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States

On February 5, Christopher Memminger proposed the creation of a Committee of Thirteen to draft a provisional constitution to grant congressional power to the convention.

The Convention settled on the latter by nominating Memminger and Robert Barnwell from South Carolina, William Barry and Wiley Harris from Mississippi, James Anderson and James Owens from Florida, Richard Walker and Robert Smith from Alabama, Alexander Stephens and Eugenius Nisbet from Georgia, and John Perkins and Duncan Kenner from Louisiana to the Committee of Twelve.

There were also several noticeable differences, including the aforementioned changes, as well as a clause to allow Congress to use a two-thirds vote to declare the president unable to perform his duties.

That was changed to the more-familiar bicameral legislature in the permanent constitution, with senators and representatives voting individually.

Since the Provisional Constitution did not provide for a House of Representatives, the section dealing with how slaves should be counted for census purposes was omitted.

Article I, Section 7, of the Provisional Constitution outlawed the overseas slave trade but allowed importation from the slaveholding U.S. states.

That differs from the U.S. Constitution in which Article I, Section 9 allows but does not require a ban on the "Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit" effective January 1, 1808.

For instance, in its preamble, "We the people" was replaced with "We, the deputies of the sovereign and independent States,...." Words such as "delegated" and "expressly granted" were also used to de-emphasize the power of the federal government and to underscore that the Confederacy was a league of states rather than a single homogeneity: the sovereign power resided within a framework that was "bottom-up," not "top-down."[3]: p.