The secessionists who attempted to create a “state’s rights confederacy” in 1861 were a hypocritical bunch. Despite calling for rebellion on account of federal overreach and a refusal to accept the results of the 1860 election, the rebel cause enhanced its power during the American Civil War by nationalizing its army, its economy and enacting martial law in its capital.
Many Southerners favored the old militia system at the onset of the war. Jefferson Davis realized that this would not be functional for the type of total war he faced with the Union. He began calling up militia units and then turning them into national units of the Confederate Army. Next, he enacted the first conscription on North American soil and began drafting southerners into service.
Davis nationalized the economy by opening manufacturing and other industrial entities as the war progressed. This served to focus the national effort toward producing materials directly for the war effort. Davis reorganized the need for the confederacy to produce everything they needed within their borders due to the Union blockade of their ports. Additionally, by placing an embargo on cotton, Davis essentially changed the southern economy to garner support from England and France. The confederate government also dabbled in price-fixing to control supply and used impressment to gather necessary food and supplies from their people for the war effort.
The confederacy also enacted martial law within its own capital to counter union spies and control its population. This further nationalized the confederacy by placing its own national troops in charge of domestic affairs. This was a clear change from its purported individualistic origins.
This is a classic example of how wars transform nations. Whether a belligerent revisits its assumptions or not, strategic ends shift over time, and wars terminate when two belligerents eventually decide to stop fighting. When the war began, the rebellion was predicated the institution of slavery as rooted in state’s rights and agrarianism. By the end of the war, it had given up on all three and became an industrialized, urbanized, nationalist power ready to abolish slavery in the name of independence.
