The South Creates a Government

At a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, the seven seceding states created the Confederate Constitution, a document similar to the United States Constitution, but with greater stress on the autonomy of each state. Jefferson Davis was named provisional president of the Confederacy until elections could be held.

The Confederate States of America was also called the CONFEDERACY and during the American Civil War, composed the government of 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860-61, carrying on all the affairs of a separate government and conducting a major war until defeated in the spring of 1865. Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of President Abraham Lincoln (November 1860), the seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) seceded from the Union during the following months. When the war began with the firing on Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), they were joined by four states of the upper South (Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia).

A permanent government at Richmond, Va., replaced a provisional government, established in February 1861 at Montgomery, Alabama, a year later. President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander H. Stephens headed the Confederacy, operating under a structure similar to that of the United States. The new nation soon acquired other symbols of sovereignty, such as its own stamps and a flag known as the Stars and Bars.