Confederate States of America

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CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA

As the presidential election of 1860 drew near, the Southern states faced what they saw as a growing threat to their way of life. When Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidency in November, there was no longer room for compromise. The South was convinced that Lincoln would use the power of his office to destroy slavery. Accordingly, in the months following his election, seven states of the Deep South seceded from the United States of America. South Carolina left in December; Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana in January 1861. Texas seceded on February 1 before Lincoln's inauguration in March.

The new president waited a month before he sent reinforcements to protect the federal arsenal at Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. When Charleston guns fired on the fort on April 12, the Civil War began. Lincoln immediately called for volunteers in response to this. Forced to choose between staying in the Union or joining the seven states that left it, four additional Southern states—Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee—seceded as well. They would wage a long and devastating war that cost over 620,000 lives. The Union victory in 1865 would finally reunite the country, but leave cultural and political scars that still affect Americans today.

building a confederate government

On February 4, two months before the attack on Fort Sumter, six states of the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a provisional government. The constitution for the Confederacy was similar to the U.S. Constitution of 1787, which Southerners generally revered, although they felt the abolitionist North wrongly interpreted it. There were some differences, however. The president of the new nation was elected for a single term of six years. He was given veto power over the budget. Amendments could be passed with a two-thirds majority instead of three-fourths. Slavery was protected, except that the external African slave trade was prohibited, and Congress could not pass a law infringing on slave owners' rights.

The Confederacy chose Jefferson Davis as its first president. He was born in Kentucky and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1828. He had served in Congress and was wounded in the war with Mexico. Davis believed that Lincoln's election spelled disaster for the South. The vice president was the frail and sickly Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia who defended slavery, but opposed the dissolution of the Union.

As the business of forming a government progressed, it became increasingly clear that the city of Montgomery was not the best choice for the new capital. The climate was hot, and the hotel facilities were poor. It also was not well located within the eleven confederate states. In May 1861, after Virginia joined the Confederacy, the capital moved to Richmond, which had a population of about forty thousand people. Davis had opposed the move, but Congress overrode his veto. Afterward, presidential and congressional elections were held in November. Davis and Stephens, who ran unopposed, were pointedly re-inaugurated on George Washington's birthday, February 22, 1862.

The South was seemingly united on the cause of slavery, although most Southerners would have said they were fighting not to save that institution, but to protect states' rights. However, there was friction among groups almost immediately. Lacking any established political parties, the result was disorganization and confusion. Some thought Davis was too dictatorial; some backed the war effort but disliked him personally; others wanted the government to negotiate with the North for peace.

manpower and economics

The most immediate concern of the newly formed Confederate States of America was to raise and equip an army. At first, it was assumed that intense patriotism would fill the military ranks with volunteers. However, after the first few clashes on bloody battlefields, the desire for volunteering waned somewhat and conscription was begun in April 1862. It was the first such law in American history and was mainly aimed at stopping twelve-month volunteers from leaving the military. The draft law called up able-bodied white men, ages eighteen to thirty-five, for a three-year period. Most Southerners bitterly opposed it, for they regarded being drafted as a disgrace, and disliked the government dictating control over their lives. Nevertheless, it overwhelmingly passed through Congress, which regarded it as a necessary evil.

Southern leaders well knew that they were far inferior to the North in terms of manpower and economic resources. The population of the eleven Confederate states was about five and a half million whites and nearly four million black slaves. The Union had a population of twenty-two million. The estimated total number (over the entire duration of the war) of Southerners who served in the Confederate army was 750,000; twice that many troops served in the Union army. The Confederate Army reached its top strength in June 1863 just before the Battle of Gettysburg. After that loss, Southern military power began to decline.

In addition to needing soldiers to fight the war, the Confederacy needed funds. Its first attempt to obtain money was to print it. Hampered by constitutional limits, the Congress issued paper money, which brought on rampant inflation. For instance, in August 1863, the Confederate dollar was equal to eight cents in gold; by March 1865, it was less than two cents. In comparison, although the northern greenback also depreciated, it never lost more than two-thirds of its value. As a result of the collapse, the southern population suffered greatly: flour cost $275 a barrel and bacon was $9 a pound.

What was even worse than inflation was the inability of the Confederacy to provide adequate food for the troops or for the families of poor soldiers. This was due in part to having to convert fields from growing cotton to growing food crops. Soldiers destroyed railroad lines, thus delaying the delivery of food. In addition, hundreds of acres of cotton were burned to prevent them from falling into the hands of Union troops. The South had been confident that foreign countries such as England and France would recognize the Confederacy because of their dependence on American cotton, but that never materialized. The scarcity of food greatly contributed to a loss of morale in the last months of the Civil War.

states' rights

In addition to its manpower and economic shortages, the Confederacy faced the very real problem of winning a war while adhering to the ideal of states' rights. The traditions of the South sought to protect individual property rights and stood against a powerful central government. In fact, the new constitution did not give Congress the power to overrule state court decisions. Yet, a strong government with the power to pass laws infringing on the rights of the states for the good of the Confederacy was exactly what was needed to win a war.

The conflict between advocates of states' rights and the need for a strong central authority to fight the war put the Confederate government in a position of often being at war with its own people; the doctrine of states' rights is usually given as a major factor in the defeat of the South. The conflict first flared up when the conscription law was passed. As the war progressed, plantation owners became reluctant to send out their slaves to work on war projects or in factories. Acts of impressment—seizing private citizens for duty—plus mounting battle losses, so enraged the people of South Carolina that by 1864, only one paper in the entire state (the Charleston Courier) backed Jefferson Davis. In fact, Congressman William W. Boyce proposed a revolt against the president and later called publicly for a convention between the North and South to talk about peace terms.

the lingering effects

The Civil War began at 4:30 on the morning of April 12, 1861, at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The Confederate government effectively collapsed when Richmond fell on April 2, 1865. The war formally ended on the afternoon of April 9, 1865, when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. More than 620,0000 Americans died due to battle casualties, disease, and other causes. About 400,000 on both sides were wounded. It was the worst conflict ever fought on American soil.

A large part of the southland was in ruins. Soldiers returned home to burned out homes, and plantation fields, once tended by slaves, were left unplanted. The lawless roamed the streets. Railroads no longer ran; banks shut down. Thousands were homeless. The war was over, but a long period of reconstruction, which left the white Southern population bitter and resentful toward the North, was just beginning. African Americans were jubilant, for the Confederacy's demise and the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment brought them freedom and immediate hope for the future.

Most of the novels of that period focus on the great suffering of the South, although the North endured great suffering as well. But the war was fought mainly on Southern land; as depicted in the classic novel and motion picture, Gone With the Wind, the lives of both whites and blacks were turned upside down as people struggled to find a way to rebuild their lives in a society that was no longer understood by either side.