Counterculture/The Confederate States of America

The Confederate States of America (CSA, also known as the Confederacy) is a confederacy of twleve states in Southeastern North America. It was formed when they seceded from the United States in the Confederate Revolution of 1861-1864. The confederacy has twelve states, stretching from Florida in the Southwest to Virginia in the North, and bordered on the West by Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. It is bordered in the North by the United States of America, and in the West by the Lone Star Republic and the Lone Star Indian Territories. Citizens of the CSA are often called confederates, although most prefer to identify by the name of the state the live in. The CSA is formed as a confederacy of distinct states under a loose central government.

History

The CSA was founded in 1861, when 11 states seceded from the USA. The original 11 states of the Confederacy were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Missouri and Kentucky each had two separate governments, one Union, one Confederate. As such, they were claimed by both sides as members. 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.

At the foundation of the Confederacy, the official flag was the "Stars and Bars." However, it 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. In 1864, after the end of the Confederate Revolutionary War, the "Southern Cross" was made the official flag of the CSA, in honor of its place in the war. 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 originally, for the states that considered themselves part of the confederacy at the time. The current flag has twelve, since Texas seceded.

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.

Both England an France held significant sway in the CSA, and both were strongly opposed to the continuation of slavery. In the early 1880s, they began to put more pressure on the Confederacy to do away with its "peculiar institution. This created a backlash, and in 1885, General Jeb Stuart was elected president on a strongly pro-slavery isolationist platform. England began placing tariffs on cotton and tobacco, and refusing to export commercially important goods to the CSA. France soon followed in England's footsteps, as did several other Western European countries, Canada and the USA. After six years of economic hardship caused by these boycotts, the CSA elected Custis Lee (the son of the General Robert E. Lee) President. He ran on a much more moderate platform, with promises to sort things out with Europe, and find an equitable way to handle the tapering off of slavery. He started the Staggered Release Program, which, amongst other items, prohibited anyone from being born a slave after January, 1895. This caused great controversy in the CSA, and Georgia actually seceded from the confederacy, although it had serious economic difficulties and was readmitted in November of 1896.

Law 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.

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 prohibits the importation of new slaves from outside the Confederacy.

The capital of the Confederacy was Montgomery, Alabama, from February 4, 1861, until May 29, 1861, when it was moved to Richmond, Virginia.