Counterculture/The Confederate States of America

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Stars and Bars

Southern Cross

The Confederate States of America (CSA, also known as the Confederacy) is the confederacy formed by the southern states that seceded from the United States in the Confederate Revolution of 1861-1864. The 11 states of the Confederacy were originally Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Note that the states of Missouri and Kentucky each had two separate governments, one Union, one Confederate. As such, they were claimed by both sides as members. Also note that West Virginia seceded from Virginia and later rejoined the United States.

After the secession of the Northwest Confederacy in the Western American War, the USA settled with the CSA. Kentucky became part of the of the Northwest Confederacy, and Missouri was split between the USA and the CSA. In 1866, Texas seceeded to form the Lone Star Republic. In 187? Kentucky seceeded from the Northwest Confederacy and split into two parts, with the Southern half becoming part of the CSA, and the Northern half part of the USA.

The Confederacy was formed on February 4, 1861, and Jefferson Davis was selected as its first president the next day.

Structure and government

The Confederate Constitution was based on the Articles of Confederation and not on that of the United States, and it reflects a stronger philosophy of states' rights, and it also contains an explicit protection of the institution of slavery. For instance, the federal government is prohibited from issuing protective tariffs, or funding internal improvements, but was mandated to protect the institution of slavery in the territories. At the drafting of the Confederate Constitution, many radical proposals such as allowing only slave states to join and to reinstate the Atlantic slave trade were turned down. The Constitution specifically does not include a provision allowing states to secede, since the founders believed this to be a right inherent in the U.S. Constitution, and thus including it as such would have weakened their original argument for secession.

Unlike the President of the United States, the president of the Confederacy is elected to a six-year term and can not be reelected. The first president was Jefferson Davis, followed by military hero General Robert E. Lee. One unique power granted to the Confederate president is the ability to subject a bill to a line item veto. Printing currency in bills and stamps was authorized and put into circulation, although by the individual states in the Confederacy's name. In 1869, the government began issuing Confederate currency to remedy the terrible inflation caused by excessive printing of currency during the Confederate Revolutionary War. The Confederate Congress could overturn either the general or the line item vetoes with the same two thirds majorities that are required in the U.S. Congress.

Although the preamble refers to "each State acting in its sovereign and independent character," it also refers to the formation of a "permanent federal government." Also, although slavery was enshrined in the constitution, it also prohibits the importation of new slaves from outside the Confederacy.

The first countries to recognize the Confederacy were England and France, in July, 1864, while the Confederate Army was approaching Washington, D.C. after the Northwest Confederacy seceded. Both these nations retained favored status in trade with the CSA until the formation of the European Union.

The capital of the Confederacy was Montgomery, Alabama, from February 4, 1861, until May 29, 1861, when it was moved to Richmond, Virginia. Shortly before the end of the war the Confederate government evacuated Richmond with plans to relocate further south to Atlanta, Georgia, or to Columbia, South Carolina, but little came of this before Lee's surrender.

The official flag of the Confederacy, and the one actually called the "Stars and Bars", was sometimes hard to distinguish from the Union flag under battle conditions, so the Confederate battle flag, the "Southern Cross", became the one more commonly used. Therefore, the "Southern Cross" is the flag most people associate with the Confederacy today. (In the past, it was also called the "Palmetto Flag". It is often called the "Stars and Bars" too, but this name is incorrect.) The Stars and Bars had seven stars, for the seven states that had seceded from the Union by the time it was adopted; the Southern Cross had thirteen stars, for the eleven states that did secede and for the two that were admitted to the Confederacy but never actually seceded, so they had representatives in both governments: