The Confederate States Congress was both the provisional and permanent legislative assembly of the Confederate States of America that existed from February 1861 to April/June 1865, during the American Civil War. Its actions were, for the most part, concerned with measures to establish a new national government for the Southern proto-state in the current Southern United States region, and to prosecute a war that had to be sustained throughout the existence of the Confederacy. At first, it met as a provisional congress both in the first capital city of Montgomery, Alabama, and the second in Richmond, Virginia. As was the case for the provisional Congress after it moved northeast to Richmond, the permanent Congress met in the existing Virginia State Capitol, a building which it also shared with the secessionist Virginia General Assembly (state legislature).
The precursor to the permanent Congressional legislature was the temporary Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, which helped establish the Confederacy as a nation state with an organized government. Following elections held in individual states, refugee colonies, and army camps in November 1861, the 1st Confederate States Congress met in four sessions. The 1863 midterm elections led to many former Democrats losing to former Whigs, the political parties of the recent 1850s in the United States in which they had formerly participated. The 2nd Confederate Congress met in two sessions following an intersession during the military campaign season beginning November 7, 1864, and ending on March 18, 1865, shortly before the conclusion of the Civil War and the downfall of the Confederacy.
All legislative considerations of the Confederate Congress were secondary to winning the American Civil War. These included debates whether to pass President Jefferson Davis's war measures and deliberations on alternatives to administration proposals, both of which were often denounced as discordant, regardless of the outcome. Congress was often held in low regard regardless of what it did. Amidst early battlefield victories, few sacrifices were asked of those who resided in the Confederacy, and the Confederate Congress and Davis were in essential agreement.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. vii–viii.
During the second half of the war, the Davis administration's program became more demanding, and the Confederate Congress responded by becoming more assertive in the law-making process even before the 1863 elections. It began to modify administration proposals, substitute its own measures, and sometimes it refused to act at all. While it initiated few major policies, it often concerned itself with details of executive administration. Despite its devotion to Confederate independence, it was criticized by supporters of Davis for occasional independence, and censured in the dissenting press for not asserting itself more often.
Provisional Congress
The Confederate Congress first met provisionally on February 4, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a unified national government among states whose secessionist conventions had resolved to leave their union with the United States. Most Deep South residents and many in the border states believed the new nation about to be born in a revolution to perpetuate slavery was the logical result of defeats in sectional contests.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p.1.
Meeting at Montgomery
The 1859 raid at the federal Harpers Ferry Armory in Harper's Ferry, then in Virginia, at the confluence of the Shenandoah with the Potomac River, by abolitionist John Brown to free slaves in Virginia was hailed in the North by other abolitionists, who proclaimed that it was a noble martyrdom, while many in the South saw Brown as a provocateur and dangerous extremist, seeking to incite servile insurrection and violent social upheaval. The North seemed unwilling to accept the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Dredd Scott case of March 1857, that slaves were not free citizens even if moved to Northern free states or to the western federal territories, and by implication, therefore guaranteeing slavery in the territories, and the Democratic Party had split among Northern and Southern factions over the issue, especially in the controversial disputed 1860 presidential election. Sectional antagonism was magnified with the decline of the national Whig Party and the upsurge of the newly-organized Republican Party in 1854, was insistent on ending the extension of slavery in the western territories, which was seen as a threat to the very existence of continued slavery in the South itself, and of a white Southern civilization.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p.1-2.
The increasing economic rivalry and gap of wealth between Northern industry and more mechanized farming versus Southern slave cash-crop agriculture seemed to be a losing battle that would permanently subject the South as diminished colonists dependent on an aggressive business world. Secession was to the state delegates meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, a clear cut solution to over several decades of humiliation, reverses, and defeats. A new nation of secessionist states exclusive to the South, would assure uncompromised slavery and deliver an independent economic security based on King Cotton.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p.2.
The November 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln proved to be the deciding catalyst for the Deep South. Southern members of Congress repeatedly addressed their constituents, saying that all hope of sectional relief and redress was done and that "the sole and primary aim of each slaveholding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from an unnatural and hostile Union."Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p.3.
A chain reaction was set off, as the "secessionists", "straight-outs", and "States' rights men" demanded separate state action to withdraw from the United States and immediate regrouping as a Southern union for self defense. Cooperation towards such a new government was being achieved even before the Montgomery Convention, as the Southern states had been exchanging a series of commissioners to determine their joint action since the fall of 1860. On December 31, 1860, the South Carolina Convention issued an invitation to Southern states to form a Southern Confederacy, and, after their next commissioners returned on January 11, 1861, South Carolina invited all slave states in the Union to meet in Montgomery on February 4.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p.4-7. Another six states called secession conventions of their own, held statewide elections to select delegates, convened and passed secession ordinances between January 9 and February 1, 1861.Martis, Kenneth C., The Historical Atlas of the Congress of the Confederate States of America: 1861–1865, Simon & Schuster, 1994, , p. 7
South Carolina set the pattern for electing delegates to the Provisional Congress. Six state conventions elected two delegates at large, and one from each congressional district. Florida allowed its secessionist governor to appoint the state delegation. There was no popular election to the Provisional Congress; vacancies were filled by the secessionist conventions, state legislatures or temporarily by a convention president.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 7.
Membership and politics Historian of the Confederate Congress, Wilfred Buck Yearns, held that the most significant feature of the Montgomery gathering was its moderation. The secessionist conventions had not only intended to establish a slaveholding republic of the Lower South, they also hoped to attract the border slaveholding states, and they sought to reconcile their own in-state cooperationists and union men. The result was that the Confederate Provisional Congress began its work in relative harmony.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 7-8.
The state secessionist conventions had generally chosen delegates that truly represented their congressional districts, so the Provisional Congress fairly represented the diversity of the Southern states, excluding, of course, the millions of black people held in bondage throughout the South. Fifty delegates attended the first sessions at Montgomery. A majority of them had served in state secessionist conventions, and, overall in Congress, straight-out secessionists held a three-to-two ratio over the former conditional unionists. Alabama and Mississippi had the only state delegations with majority conditional unionists.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 9.
Most of the Provisional Congressional delegates were prominent men of major political parties. The majority of the former Democrats to former Whigs was narrow, with Alabama and Louisiana delegations majority Whig and Georgia evenly divided.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 8-9. Thirty-six members of Congress had attended college, forty-two were licensed lawyers, and seventeen were planters. Their average age was 47, ranging from 72 to 31. Thirty-four had previous legislative experience, twenty-four having served in the U.S. Congress. Charles Conrad had served as Secretary of War under President Millard Fillmore, and John Tyler had been the tenth U.S. president. As Yearns noted, "As a whole the Provisional Congress represented a higher type of leadership than either of the subsequent congresses."Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 9-10.
During the Provisional Congress, the expected political rivalries between secessionist fire-eaters and conservative conditional unionists did not appear, nor did the older factions of former Democrats versus former Whigs. Past politics were reserved for short-hand labeling during election campaigns. The main basis for political division in the Confederate Congress were the issues related to the policies of the President and his administration. In the first year of the Provisional Congress, opposition stemmed from personal and philosophical differences with Jefferson Davis. Davis spoke in states' rights terms, but his actions were increasingly nationalist from early on, and he freely used his veto power against bills meant to limit national policy in a way that led to charges of "military despotism".Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 218-219.
Some opposition came from personal dislike of Davis; other opponents believed the presidency rightfully belonged to Robert Rhett. Henry S. Foote and Davis had a long running dislike for each other, which had previously lead to physical fight on the floor of the U.S. Congress. Another representative, William Lowndes Yancey, resented Davis for distributing patronage jobs. Even friends of Davis's resented his habit of leaving Congress in total ignorance of executive policy and administration. He disliked personal interaction and met members only in state delegations. Generally speaking, Davis showed little interest in compromise, and Congressional legislators returned the favor by holding onto the opinions that got them elected.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 220-222.
Despite some resistance to the Davis administration proposals, because victory seemed imminent, little of the Confederacy was occupied, and any legislation that might require real sacrifice among the citizenry seemed unnecessary. Most Congressional debates were kept secret from the public, measures passed with substantial majorities, and the president's messages were encouraging.Yearns, Wilfred Buck. The Confederate Congress, (1935, 2010) , p. 222-223.
Constitution drafting