The Confederate States were formed on February 4, 1861, by six Southern slave states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana) after confirmation of the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States. Jefferson Davis was selected as its first President the next day.

Texas joined the Confederacy on March 2 and then replaced its governor, Sam Houston, when he refused to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. These seven states seceded¹ from the United States and took control of military/naval installations, ports, and custom houses within their boundaries, triggering the American Civil War.

A month after the Confederacy was formed, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States. In his inaugural address, he argued that the Constitution was a more perfect union than the earlier Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, that it was a binding contract, and called the secession "legally void". He stated he had no intent to invade southern states, but would use force to maintain possession of federal property and collection of various federal taxes, duties and imposts. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union.

On April 12 South Carolina troops fired upon the Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina until the troops surrendered. Following the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for all remaining states in the Union to send troops to recapture Sumter and other forts, defend the capital, and preserve the Union. Most Northerners believed that a quick victory for the Union would crush the nascent rebellion, and so Lincoln only called for volunteers for 90 days. This resulted in four more states voting to secede: Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina joined the Confederacy for a total of 11. Once Virginia seceded, the Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, Virginia

The government of Kentucky remained in the Union after a short-lived attempt at neutrality, but a rival faction from that state was also accepted as members of the Confederacy. A more complex situation surrounds the Missouri Secession, but in any event Missouri was also considered a member of the Confederate States. The number of Confederate states is thus sometimes considered to be 13.

The five tribal governments of the Indian Territory—which became Oklahoma in 1907—also mainly supported the Confederacy. The southern part of New Mexico Territory (including parts of the Gadsden Purchase) joined with the Confederacy as Arizona Territory. These first settlers petitioned the Confederate government for annexation of their lands, prompting an expedition in which territory south of the 34th parallel was governed by the Confederacy. Arizona troops were also officially recognized within the armies of the Confederacy.

Preceding his New Mexico Campaign, General Sibley issued a proclamation to the people of New Mexico his intentions of taking possession of the territory in the name of the Confederate States. Confederate troops briefly occupied the territorial capital of Santa Fe between March 13 and April 8, 1862.

Not all jurisdictions where slavery was still legal joined the Confederacy. In 1861 martial law was declared in Maryland (the state which borders the U.S. capital, Washington, D.C., on three sides) to block attempts at secession. Delaware, also a slave state, never considered secession, nor did the capital of the U.S., Washington, D.C.. In 1861, during the war, a unionist rump legislature in Wheeling, Virginia seceded from Virginia, claiming 48 counties, and joined the United States in 1863 as the state of West Virginia, with a constitution that would have gradually abolished slavery[1]. Similar attempts to secede from the Confederacy in parts of other states (notably in eastern Tennessee) were held in check by Confederacy declarations of martial law[2][3].

The surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia by General Lee at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865 is generally taken as the end of the Confederate States. President Davis was captured at Irwinville, Georgia on May 10 and the remaining Confederate armies surrendered by June 1865. The last Confederate flag was hauled down on CSS Shenandoah on November 6, 1865.

Government and politics

Constitution

The Confederate States Constitution provides much insight into the motivations for secession from the Union. Based to a certain extent on both the Articles of Confederation and on the United States Constitution, it reflected a stronger philosophy of states' rights, curtailing the power of the central authority, and also contained explicit protection of the institution of slavery, though international slave trading was prohibited. It differed from the US Constitution chiefly by addressing the grievances of the secessionist states against the federal government of the United States. For example, the Confederate government was prohibited from instituting protective tariffs, making southern ports more attractive to international traders. Prior to the declarations of secession, most southerners regarded protective tariffs as a measure that enriched the northern states at the expense of the south. The Confederate government was also prohibited from using revenues collected in one state for funding internal improvements in another state. At the same time, however, much of the Confederate constitution was a word-for-word duplicate of the US one.

At the drafting of the Constitution of the Confederacy, a few radical proposals such as allowing only slave states to join and the reinstatement of the Atlantic slave trade were turned down. The Constitution specifically did not include a provision allowing states to secede, since the southerners considered this to be a right intrinsic to a sovereign state which the United States Constitution had not required them to renounce, and thus including it as such would have weakened their original argument for secession.

The President of the Confederacy was to be elected to a six-year term and could not be reelected. The only president was Jefferson Davis; the Confederacy 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 US Congress.

Printed currency in the forms of bills and stamps was authorized and put into circulation, although by the individual states in the Confederacy's name. The government considered issuing Confederate coinage. Plans, dies and 4 "proofs" were created, but a lack of bullion prevented any public coinage.

Although the preamble refers to "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character", it also refers to the formation of a "permanent federal government". Also, although slavery was protected in the constitution, it also prohibited the importation of new slaves from outside the Confederacy (except from slaveholding states or territories of the United States).

Capital

The capital of the Confederacy was Montgomery, Alabama, from February 4, 1861, until May 29, 1861, when it was moved to Richmond, Virginia (named the new capital on May 6, 1861). Shortly before the end of the war, the Confederate government evacuated Richmond with plans to relocate further south to Atlanta, Georgia, or to Columbia, South Carolina, but little came of this before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and Danville, Virginia, served from April 3 to April 10, 1865, as the last capital of the Confederacy.

International diplomacy and legal status

The legal status of the Confederate Government was a subject of extensive debate throughout its existence and for many years after the war. During its existence, the Confederate government conducted negotiations with several European powers (including France and the United Kingdom). The Confederacy received formal diplomatic recognition only from Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the ruler of a minor German principality. The UK came close to recognizing the Confederacy during the Trent Affair and began preparations to offer mediation along with France (due to Emperor Napoleon III's project, the Mexican Empire), but both nations backed away after the Battle of Antietam and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Throughout the war most European powers adopted a policy of neutrality, meeting informally with Confederate diplomats but withholding diplomatic recognition. In its place, they applied international law principles that recognized the Northern and Southern sides of the war as belligerents. Canada allowed both Confederate and Union agents to work openly within its borders and some state governments in northern Mexico negotiated regional agreements to cover trade on the Texas border.

For the four years of its existence, the Confederacy asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. The Northern government, by contrast, asserted that the southern states were provinces in rebellion and refused any formal recognition of their status. Telling of this dispute, the Confederate Government responded to the hostilities by formally declaring war on the United States while the Union Government conducted its war efforts under a proclamation of blockade and rebellion by President Lincoln. Mid-war negotiations between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war governed military relationships.

Four years after the war the United States Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that secession was unconstitutional and legally null. The court's opinion was rendered by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, the former Treasury Secretary under Lincoln. Chase's opinion was immediately attacked and remains controversial to this day. Critics such as Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens penned subsequent legal arguments in favor of secession's legality, most notably Davis' Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government.