Confederate States of America

A state that claimed sovereignty for four years and was recognised by no government anywhere. Eleven southern states seceded after Lincoln's election in 1860, seven before he took office, and the declarations of causes they published say plainly what the cause was: Mississippi's opened by describing its position as thoroughly identified with slavery. The constitution written at Montgomery copied the American one closely but explicitly protected property in slaves and forbade any law impairing it. The government was crippled by its own doctrine - a confederacy founded on states' rights struggled to conscript, tax or requisition, and governors withheld troops from Richmond while the currency inflated to worthlessness. Its diplomatic strategy assumed that withholding cotton would force Britain and France to intervene; both had surplus stocks, found other suppliers in Egypt and India, and would not back a slave power after emancipation was declared in 1863. Around a quarter of the white men of military age died. Some two hundred thousand Black soldiers and sailors served on the Union side, many of them formerly enslaved in Confederate territory. The government fled Richmond in April 1865 and dissolved within weeks. The Lost Cause account constructed afterwards, recasting the war as one about tariffs and sovereignty, shaped American memory for a century and is contradicted by the founders' own documents. Montgomery was the first capital and Richmond the second. Jefferson Davis was its only president and was never elected to a second term because none was held. Its currency was backed by nothing but expectation of victory. The battle flag now widely displayed was never the national flag.

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