Difference between revisions of "Confederate States of America"
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==Beginnings== | ==Beginnings== | ||
− | The various southern states seceded from the [[United States of America]], and joined together as the "Confederate States of America" for a number of reasons, including a Northern state favored balance of power in Congress, Free Trade, and, after Lincoln's triumph in the [[1860 Presidential election]], the threat of [[abolitionism|abolitionists]] to end [[slavery]], which Southerners viewed as a matter of [[states' rights]] that should not be enforced at the federal level, rather than as a moral issue. | + | The various southern states seceded from the [[United States of America]], and joined together as the "Confederate States of America" for a number of reasons, including a Northern state favored balance of power in Congress, Free Trade, and, after Lincoln's triumph in the [[1860 Presidential election]], the threat of [[abolitionism|abolitionists]] to end [[slavery]], which Southerners viewed as a matter of [[states' rights]] that should not be enforced at the federal level, rather than as a moral issue. It can be argued that the issue of slavery was only the flash point for the conflict, and that resentment in the South about the more centralised federal government that undermined [[states' rights]]. |
Only four states where slavery was legal at that time failed to secede -- [[Delaware]], [[Kentucky]], [[Maryland]] and [[Missouri]]. It was a near thing in the latter three states, which all wound up raising [[regiment]]s for the Confederacy as well as the [[Union]], although not as an official act of their governments. | Only four states where slavery was legal at that time failed to secede -- [[Delaware]], [[Kentucky]], [[Maryland]] and [[Missouri]]. It was a near thing in the latter three states, which all wound up raising [[regiment]]s for the Confederacy as well as the [[Union]], although not as an official act of their governments. |
Revision as of 10:53, April 30, 2008
The Civil War
1861 - 1865 | |
---|---|
Confederate States of America | |
Created | February 4, 1861 |
Ended | April 9, 1865 |
President | Jefferson Davis |
Secretary of War | Leroy Pope Walker, Judah P. Benjamin, George W. Randolph, James Seddon, John C. Breckinridge |
Secretary of the Navy | Stephan Mallory |
Secretary of State | Robert Toombs, Robert M.T. Hunter, Judah P. Benjamin |
The Confederate States of America (informally, the Confederacy) was a government created from an alliance of eleven southern states which had seceeded from the United States between December 1860 and April 1861. The American Civil War that was begun by the Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter proved disasterous; four years of savage fighting ended with the fledgling government defeated and dissolved, and left the southern states a financial and industrial wreck.
Contents
Beginnings
The various southern states seceded from the United States of America, and joined together as the "Confederate States of America" for a number of reasons, including a Northern state favored balance of power in Congress, Free Trade, and, after Lincoln's triumph in the 1860 Presidential election, the threat of abolitionists to end slavery, which Southerners viewed as a matter of states' rights that should not be enforced at the federal level, rather than as a moral issue. It can be argued that the issue of slavery was only the flash point for the conflict, and that resentment in the South about the more centralised federal government that undermined states' rights.
Only four states where slavery was legal at that time failed to secede -- Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri. It was a near thing in the latter three states, which all wound up raising regiments for the Confederacy as well as the Union, although not as an official act of their governments.
The president of the Confederate States of America was Jefferson Davis, a former Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce and later Senator from Mississippi. Richmond, Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy after that state seceded in mid-April of 1861 following the surrender of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's call for volunteers, and one day before the Pratt Street riot in Baltimore, Maryland, the first battle of the Civil War to kill Americans on both sides.
General Robert E. Lee led the Confederate forces into battle against the Union armies, led by various generals appointed by Abraham Lincoln, with the last, and most successful being General Ulysses S. Grant.
Ideology
Professor Emory Thomas of Virginia found it instructive to compare the correspondence sent by the Confederate government in the first year of its existence to different governments. He writes, "The Southern nation was by turns a guileless people attacked by a voracious neighbor, an 'established' nation in some temporary difficulty, a collection of bucolic aristocrats making a romantic stand against the banalities of industrial democracy, a cabal of commercial farmers seeking to make a pawn of King Cotton, an apotheosis of nineteenth-century nationalism and revolutionary liberalism, or the ultimate statement of social and economic reaction." [1] Certainly some of the leaders of the Confederacy could be found to believe in any one of these incarnations of their country, but probably none to believe in all at once. The aspect of resistance to industrialization has most captured the imagination of future generations of Southerners.
The example of the U. S. Constitution clearly guided the drafters of the Confederate Constitution, enabling the latter group to complete their work in less than half as much time. [2] The predictable provision banning efforts to end de jure slavery is found at Article I, Section 9, clause 4, lumped in with the provisions banning ex post facto laws and bills of attainder. It is three clauses down from a most unexpected clause banning the Atlantic slave trade, but permitting the importation of slaves from the Union. The wording of this clause demonstrates that the drafters clearly anticipated that not all slave states would secede, although they also included a provision for accepting new states into the Confederacy, which proved essential when Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina seceded from the United States after the Constitution was in effect. Although the Confederate document includes no bill of rights as such, the Ninth Amendment and Tenth Amendment are reproduced in Article VI as Sections 5 and 6. The Confederate ban on a religious test for office is Section 4, notwithstanding the fact that the preamble invokes the blessing of almighty God on the Confederate experiment. [3] Perhaps the most significant differences had to do with the appropriations process in Congress. Not only was a line-item veto expressly included, but Congress required a two-thirds supermajority to appropriate any funds not specifically requested by the President, giving Jefferson Davis in a real sense more Constitutional power than Abraham Lincoln possessed.
Leadership
Legislative branch
President of the Congress
- Robert Woodward Barnwell, 4 Feb 1861 (served for several hours)
- Howell Cobb, 4 Feb 1861 - 18 Feb 1861
President Pro Tempore of the Senate
- Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, 18 Feb 1862 - 18 Mar 1865
President Pro Tempore of the Provisional Congress
- Robert Woodward Barnwell, 4 Feb 1861 - 16 Mar 1861
- Thomas Stanhope Bobcock, Josiah A.P. Campbell, 18 Nov 1861 - 17 Feb 1862
Speaker of the House of Representatives
- Thomas Stanhope Bobcock, 18 Feb 1862 - 18 Mar 1865
Executive branch
President of the Confederate States
- Jefferson Finis Davis, 18 Feb 1861 - 10 May 1865 (provisional president to 6 Nov 1861)
Vice President of the Confederate States
- Alexander Hamilton Stephens, 18 Feb 1861 - 11 May 1865 (provisional vice president to 6 Nov 1861)
Secretary of State
- Robert Augustus Toombs, 21 Feb 1861 - 24 Jul 1861
- Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, 25 Jul 1861 - 1 Feb 1862
- William Montague Brown, 1 Feb 1862 - 17 Mar 1862
- Judah Philip Benjamin, 18 Mar 1862 - 3 May 1865
Attorney General
- Judah Philip Benjamin, 25 Feb 1861 - 17 Sep 1861
- Wade Rutledge Keyes, 17 Sep 1861 - 21 Nov 1861
- Thomas Bragg, Jr., 21 Nov 1861 - 17 Mar 1862
- Thomas Hill Watts, 18 Mar 1862 - 1 Oct 1863
- Wade Rutledge Keyes, 1 Oct 1863 - 2 Jan 1864
- George Davis, 2 Jan 1864 - 24 Apr 1865
Commissioner of Patents
- Rufus Randolph Rhodes, 31 May 1861 - Apr 1865
Postmaster General
- Henry T. Ellet, 25 Feb 1861 - 6 Mar 1861 (nominated and confirmed; declined appointment)
- John Henninger Reagan, 6 Mar 1861 - 5 May 1865
Secretary of the Treasury
- Christopher Gustavus Memminger, 21 Feb 1861 - 18 Jul 1864
- George Alfred Trenholm, 18 Jul 1864 - 27 Apr 1865
- John Henninger Reagan, 28 Apr 1865 - 4 May 1865
Treasurer of the Confederate States
- Edward Carrington Elmore, 6 Mar 1861 - 1865
Comptroller and Solicitor
- Lewis Cruger, 1861 - 1865
Secretary of War
- Leroy Pope Walker, 21 Feb 1861 - 16 Sep 1861
- Judah Philip Benjamin, 17 Sep 1861 - 23 Mar 1862
- George Wythe Randolph, 24 Mar 1862 - 17 Nov 1862
- Gustavus Woodson Smith, 17 Nov 1862 - 21 Nov 1862
- James Alexander Seddon, 21 Nov 1862 - 6 Feb 1865
- John Cabell Breckenridge, 6 Feb 1865 - 5 May 1865
Chiefs of the Army Engineers Bureau (subordinated to Secretary of War)
- Josiah Gorgas, 8 Apr 1861 - 3 Aug 1861
- Danville Leadbetter, 3 Aug 1861 - 10 Nov 1861
- Alfred Landon Rives, 13 Nov 1861 - 24 Sep 1862
- Jeremy Francis Gilmer, 25 Sep 1862 - 17 Aug 1863
- Alfred Landon Rives, 18 Aug 1863 - 9 Mar 1864
- Martin Luther Smith, 9 Mar 1864 - Apr 1864
- Alfred Landon Rives, Apr 1864 - Jun 1864
- Jeremy Francis Gilmer, Jun 1864 - Apr 1865
Commissioner of Indian Territory (subordinated to Secretary of War)
- Albert Pike, 16 Mar 1861 - 1862
- Benjamin J. McCullough, 1862 - 7 Mar 1862
- Albert Pike, 1862 - 5 Nov 1862
- Douglas Hancock Cooper, Nov 1862 - Jan 1863
- William Steels, Jan 1863 - Dec 1863
Commander of the Department of Indian Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs (subordinated to Secretary of War)
- Samuel Ball Maxey, Dec 1863 - 1865
- Douglas Hancock Cooper, 1865
Surgeon-general (subordinated to Secretary of War)
- Samuel Preston Moore, 16 Mar 1861 - 1865
Secretary of the Navy
- Stephan Russell Mallory, 4 Mar 1861 - 5 May 1865
Colonel-Commandant of the Confederate States Marine Corps (subordinated to Secretary of the Navy)
- Lloyd J. Beall, 23 May 1861 - 10 May 1865
Superintendent of the Confederate States Naval Academy
- William Parker, 23 Jul 1863 - 2 May 1865
Judicial branch
- A federal court system with a chief justice was not created during the 1861-1865 Confederacy.
Seal and Flags | Detail | Dates of Use |
---|---|---|
Great Seal of the Confederate States of America. The Latin motto Deo Vindice reads either "Under God, Our Vindicator" or "With God as [our] Champion". | 1862-1865 | |
The Bonnie Blue flag, unofficial first flag of the Confederacy. First flown January 9, 1861 over the state capitol building of Jackson, Mississippi. Originally, it was used by settlers of west Florida in a short, 74-day republic after they had revolted against the Spanish government, raising it at the Spanish fort in Baton Rouge on September 23, 1810. | 1861 | |
Called the Stars and Bars, it was first flown over Fort Sumter on April 13, 1861. | 1861 | |
The First National Flag of the Confederacy. Like the flag before, it was also called the Stars and Bars; this flag incorporated the 11 stars which symbolized the states that had seceeded from the Union by March, 1861. | March 4, 1861 to May 26, 1863 | |
The Second National Flag; also known as the Stainless Banner due to the large white field. It was also referred to as the Stonewall Flag, as its first official use was to cover the casket of Lieutenant General Thomas J. Jackson in 1863. | May 26, 1863 to March 3, 1865 | |
The Third National Flag. The red stripe was added to the fly to correct a major drawback of the previous flag: the appearence of a flag of surrender when it hung limp. | March 4, 1865 to April 26, 1865 | |
The flag of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, called the Southern Cross; the design became so popular that is was used as the canton of the Confederate national flag. | November 28, 1861 to the fall | |
A variation of the Second National Flag, with a shorter 1.5:1 ratio instead of 2:1. This was the last flag hauled down in surrender, when CSS Shenandoah lowered it on November 7, 1865 in Liverpool, England. | May 1, 1863 to the fall | |
This 7-star jack was used on Confederate naval warships until 1863. | 1861-1863 | |
Official Confederate naval jack for use on all warships from 1863, and patterned after the design of the battle flag. This flag was adopted in the years since as the de-facto flag of the South itself. | 1863-1865 | |
Economics
While ideology would provide much of the motivation to go to war, the economics of the Northern and Southern states made it impossible for anything but a clash to come about[Citation Needed]. While the Northern States had modernized and embraced the industrial revolution, incorporating new technology and rebuilding infrastructure to support it, the South had remained agrarian, and reliant on slave labor to boost productivity.
The southern economic model was challenged by its lack of access to capital. When a businessman in the North wanted to build a factory, he could obtain a loan from the bank or from a group of investors, pay the labor and material costs to erect it, maintain the factory as collateral, paying back the loan with cash flow from the business. The capital was constantly liquid, changing hands from one individual to another.
When a plantation or farm owner in the South wanted to expand, he could only borrow against his own land or other property. And while new goods from Northern factories were in increasing demand, the South found itself having to compete with agricultural products grown elsewhere. The south's inability to adapt its economic model to changing times, coupled with its steadfast adherence to a cruel, inhumane, and immoral labor system (slavery), led to economic ruin, which furthered the case for succession in their minds.
Legacy - Physical/Military
The principal physical legacy of the Confederacy was mass fratricidal destruction. Four years of Civil War killed at least 620,000 soldiers (counting deaths from disease as well as in battle), of whom approximately 260,000 were from the Confederacy. This represented a much larger fraction (slightly over one quarter) of the Confederacy's military age white men than was lost by the Union.
An unknown number of civilians also died, in part as a result of the campaign of organized plunder in late 1864 and early 1865 by the troops of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman which helped not only to destroy the will of the Confederacy to fight, but literally to destroy the infrastructure of the Confederacy. Severe damage was inflicted on both urban and rural communities in the South, and hundreds of thousands of people became refugees. The exigencies of total war had led to the destruction of Southern infrastructure, in particular railroads, long before 1864, but never on such a scale.
Total war based on modern technology was confirmed as the mode in which nation-states would fight each other throughout the industrial age. Simultaneously with the Union, the Confederacy launched the first seagoing ironclad warships. With the possible exception of the Prussians and British, it is unlikely that any country of comparable population and technology in the 1860s could have resisted the Union onslaught for as long as the Confederacy did. Upon the Confederate defeat, General Lee on April 9, 1865 ruled out continuing to fight as insurgents; although it can be argued that this only delayed the inevitable failure of Reconstruction, it also made physical rebuilding possible in a way it would not be in the latter stages of civil wars in other countries in the 20th century.
Legacy - Political/Ideological
Given Article Five of the U. S. Constitution, it would have been difficult to abolish slavery via Constitutional Amendment without secession in the 15 established states with the 35 free states which later existed. As it actually happened, the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified by a 26-state Union containing only four slave states. The most likely solution in the absence of secession would have been to admit smaller Western states, possibly even turning what became Indian reservations into states.
After the war and subsequent reconstruction, Radical Republicans were forced in the Compromise of 1877 to concede the failure of Reconstruction and withdraw the U. S. Army from the South, or at least from its mission of guaranteeing the rights of African-Americans. In a process known as Redemption, the rights of former slaves were crushed out of existence across the South by a system which came to be known as Jim Crow.
The association of the Democratic Party with the South grew in strength after the Civil War. However, only with the election of Woodrow Wilson in 1912 was a Southerner able to return to the White House. Whenever Democrats held a majority of either house of Congress, Southerners would immediately become the chairmen of all committees, giving that region a disproportionate influence on national politics. Because of their Jeffersonian roots, Southern Democrats were a party of small government and lower taxes (radically cutting back spending on public schools among other things during Redemption), and were hostile to organized labor. Many of these qualities are considered Republican characteristics today, illustrating the shifting winds of national politics.
American politics have been defined in part by the conflict between the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian schools of the role of government, particularly the Federal government. The Confederacy can be seen as the last stand of the Jeffersonians, who favored a system in which state policy and sovereignty would trump that of the Federal government. To this way of thinking, subsequent American politics have actually been a competition between more and less radical Hamiltonians. The Confederacy can also be seen as the last stand of an outdated economic system that rested on an immoral foundation (slavery), and its failure as evidence that the true spirit of the American Revolution was at last realized, and all men were recognized as equal.
See also
- American Civil War: 1861
- American Civil War: 1862
- American Civil War: 1863
- American Civil War: 1864
- American Civil War: 1865
- American Civil War: Aftermath