Changes

|Robert Toombs, Robert M.T. Hunter, Judah P. Benjamin

|Robert Toombs, Robert M.T. Hunter, Judah P. Benjamin

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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.

The '''Confederate States of America''' (informally, the ''Confederacy'') was a government created from an alliance of eleven southern states which had seceded 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.

==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. 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]] to uphold [[slavery]].

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]] to uphold [[slavery]].

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.