Confederate States Of America Essay, Research Paper
Confederate States of America, the name adopted by the federation of 11 slave
holding Southern states of the United States that seceded from the Union and were
arrayed against the national government during the American Civil War.
Immediately after confirmation of the election of Abraham Lincoln as president,
the legislature of South Carolina convened. In a unanimous vote on December 20, 1860,
the state seceded from the Union. During the next two months ordinances of secession
were adopted by the states of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and
Texas. President James Buchanan, in the last days of his administration, declared that the
federal government would not forcibly prevent the secessions. In February 1861, the
seceding states sent representatives to a convention in Montgomery, Alabama. The
convention, presided over by Howell Cobb of Georgia, adopted a provisional constitution
and chose Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as provisional president and Alexander
Hamilton Stephens of Georgia as provisional vice president. The convention, on March
11, 1861, unanimously ratified a permanent constitution. The constitution, which closely
resembled the federal Constitution, prohibited the African slave trade but allowed
interstate commerce in slaves.
Jefferson Davis (1808-89), first and only president of the Confederate States of
America (1861-65). Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) County,
Kentucky, and educated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky, and at the U.S.
Military Academy. After his graduation in 1828, he saw frontier service until ill health
forced his resignation from the army in 1835. He was a planter in Mississippi from 1835
to 1845, when he was elected to the U.S. Congress. In 1846 he resigned his seat in order
to serve in the Mexican War and fought at Monterrey and Buena Vista, where he was
wounded. He was U.S. senator from Mississippi from 1847 to 1851, secretary of war in
the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce from 1853 to 1857, and again U.S. senator from
1857 to 1861. As a senator he often stated his support of slavery and of states’ rights, and
as a cabinet member he influenced Pierce to sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which
favored the South and increased the bitterness of the struggle over slavery. In his second
term as senator he became the acknowledged spokesman for the Southern point of view.
He opposed the idea of secession from the Union, however, as a means of maintaining
the principles of the South. Even after the first steps toward secession had been taken, he
tried to keep the Southern states in the Union, although not at the expense of their
principles. When the state of Mississippi seceded, he withdrew from the Senate.
On February 18, 1861, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States
made him provisional president. He was elected to the office by popular vote the same
year for a 6-year term and was inaugurated in Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the
Confederacy, on February 22, 1862. Davis failed to raise sufficient money to fight the
American Civil War and could not obtain recognition and help for the Confederacy from
foreign governments. He was in constant conflict with extreme exponents of the doctrine
of states’ rights, and his attempts to have high military officers appointed by the president
were opposed by the governors of the states. The judges of state courts constantly
interfered in military matters through judicial decisions. Davis was nevertheless
responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies, the notable appointment
of General Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia, and the encouragement
of industrial enterprise throughout the South. His zeal, energy, and faith in the cause of
the South were a source of much of the tenacity with which the Confederacy fought the
Civil War. Even in 1865 Davis still hoped the South would be able to achieve its
independence, but at last he realized defeat was imminent and fled from Richmond. On
May 10, 1865, federal troops captured him at Irwinville, Georgia. From 1865 to 1867 he
was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Davis was indicted for treason in 1866 but
the next year was released on a bond of $100,000 signed by the American newspaper
publisher Horace Greeley and other influential Northerners. In 1868 the federal
government droppe
unsuccessful business enterprises; and from 1878 until his death in New Orleans, on
December 6, 1889, he lived near Biloxi, Mississippi. His grave is in Richmond, Virginia.
He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881).
Soon after his inauguration as provisional president on February 18, 1861, Davis
appointed his first cabinet; each of the six members represented a different state. The
first task of the administration was to prepare for the impending conflict. Between
December 30, 1860, and February 18, 1861, the Confederates had seized 11 federal forts
and arsenals from South Carolina to Texas and harassed Fort Sumter in Charleston, South
Carolina. Lincoln, in his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, rejected the right of
secession but attempted to conciliate the South. Negotiations for the relief of Fort Sumter
failed, and on April 12 the bombardment of the fort began. Three days later Lincoln
announced that an insurrection had occurred, and he called for volunteers.
The number of states in the Confederacy was increased to 11 by the secession of
Virginia in April and of Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina in May. The provisional Confederate Congress, which had met for four sessions between February 4,
1861 and February 17, 1862, was replaced by a permanent legislature on February 18,
1862. The Confederate capital was moved on May 24, 1861 from Montgomery to
Richmond, Virginia. At the first general elections held under the permanent constitution
on November 6, 1861, Davis was elected president and Stephens vice president. In
February 1862, Davis was inaugurated president for a term of 6 years. The last years of
his service were marked by the conflict between the civil and military forces and gave
rise to the assertion that the government of the Confederacy had become a military
dictatorship. The tendency toward dictatorship was increased by the custom of holding
secret sessions of the Congress, by the practice of cabinet officers exercising their rights
to sit in Congress, and by the gradual lowering of the political morale and independence
of Congress. This condition was further complicated by personal controversies among
officials. The first permanent Congress held four sessions; the second Congress, two sessions, with the final adjournment of the body taking place on March 18, 1865.Although the political organization of the Confederacy was almost identical with
that of the Union, the outbreak of the war served to accentuate the marked difference
between the two sections. The population of the Confederacy at the start of the war was
nearly 9 million including more than 3.8 million slaves. The population of the territory
loyal to the Union was about 22 million, including about 500,000 slaves. The value of
the improved lands of the seceding states was estimated at less than $2 billion; the value
of those in the Union states was nearly $5 billion. The South had 150 textile factories,
with a product valued at $8 million; the North had 900 such factories, with a product
valued at $115 million. In the South 2000 persons were employed in the manufacture of
clothing; in the North 100,000 were so engaged. During 1860 the imports of the South
were valued at $331 million; those of the North at $331 million. It was thus obvious that
the South was dependent on Europe and on the North for material goods. The lack of
resources forced the Confederacy to levy war taxes and borrow heavily on future cotton
crops. An inflationary period in 1863 and later government actions almost destroyed the
Confederate credit.
In addition the South was hampered by the lack of powder mills and of suitable
iron works; only one plant, the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond, was equipped to turn
out large field guns. The railroad system was inadequately developed and equipped, and although the South made desperate attempts to maintain itself in a battle against
overwhelming odds, the struggles left it financially and industrially ruined at the close of
the Civil War. The process of restoring the Confederacy to the Union was called
Reconstruction . The U.S. Supreme Court, in 1869, in the case of Texas v. White,
declared secession unconstitutional.
1. Compton?s Online Encyclopedia
2. America Is, Merrill Publishing Company and Bell and Howell Company, 1987, Columbus, Ohio
3. The American Nation, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1994