Provisional Confederate States Congress
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The Provisional Confederate States Congress, for a time the legislative branch of the Confederate States of America, was the body which drafted the Confederate States Constitution, elected Jefferson Davis as Provisional Confederate States President, and designed the first Confederate flag. Unlike the later bicameral Confederate States Congress, the Provisional Congress consisted of only one house and its members were referred to as deputies and delegates.
The Congress was first organized as the Montgomery Convention, which marked the formal beginning of the Confederate States of America. Convened in Montgomery, Alabama, the Convention organized a provisional government for the Confederacy and created the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. It opened in the chambers of the Alabama Senate on February 4, 1861. On February 8, the Convention adopted the Provisional Confederate States Constitution, and so became the first session of the Provisional Confederate Congress.[1] John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845), served as a delegate from Virginia in the Provisional Confederate States Congress until his death in 1862.
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Sessions [edit]
- First Session 4 February 1861 – 16 March 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama
- Second Session 29 April 1861 – 21 May 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama
- Third Session 20 July 1861 – 31 August 1861 in Richmond, Virginia
- Fourth Session 3 September 1861 (called) in Richmond, Virginia
- Fifth Session 18 November 1861 – 17 February 1862 in Richmond, Virginia
Leadership [edit]
President of the Provisional Congress
- Howell Cobb, Sr. of Georgia – 4 February 1861 – 17 February 1862
President pro tempore
- Robert Woodward Barnwell of South Carolina – February 4, 1861
- Thomas Stanley Bocock of Virginia – December 10–21, 1861 and January 7–8, 1862
- Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell of Mississippi – December 23–24, 1861 and January 6, 1862
Members [edit]
Deputies [edit]
Deputies from the first seven states to secede formed the first two sessions of the Congress.
- William Parish Chilton, Sr.
- Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry
- Thomas Fearn (resigned 16 March 1861 after first Session)
- Nicholas Davis, Jr. (took his seat on 29 April 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
- Stephen F. Hale
- David Peter Lewis (resigned 16 March 1861 after first Session)
- Henry Cox Jones (took his seat on 29 April 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
- Colin John McRae
- John Gill Shorter (resigned November 1861)
- Cornelius Robinson (took his seat on 29 April 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy; resigned 24 January 1862)
- Robert Hardy Smith
- Richard Wilde Walker
- James Patton Anderson (resigned 8 April 1861)
- George Taliaferro Ward (took his seat on 2 May 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy; resigned 5 February 1862)
- John Pease Sanderson (took his seat on 5 February 1862 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
- Jackson Morton
- James Byeram Owens
- Francis Stebbins Bartow (killed 21 July 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run)
- Thomas Marsh Forman (took his seat on 7 August 1861 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
- Howell Cobb, Sr.
- Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb
- Martin Jenkins Crawford
- Benjamin Harvey Hill
- Augustus Holmes Kenan
- Eugenius Aristides Nisbet (resigned 10 December 1861)
- Nathan Henry Bass, Sr. (took his seat on 14 January 1862 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
- Alexander Hamilton Stephens
- Robert Augustus Toombs
- Augustus Romaldus Wright
- Charles Magill Conrad
- Alexandre Etienne DeClouet
- Duncan Farrar Kenner
- Henry Marshall
- John Perkins, Jr.
- Edward Sparrow
- William Taylor Sullivan Barry
- Walker Brooke
- Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell
- Alexander Mosby Clayton (resigned 11 May 1861)
- Alexander Blackburn Bradford (took his seat on 5 December 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
- Wiley Pope Harris
- James Thomas Harrison
- William Sydney Wilson (resigned 16 March 1861 after first session)
- Jehu Amaziah Orr (took his seat on 29 April 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
- Robert Woodward Barnwell
- William Waters Boyce
- James Chesnut, Jr.
- Laurence Massillon Keitt
- Christopher Gustavus Memminger
- William Porcher Miles
- Robert Barnwell Rhett, Sr.
- Thomas Jefferson Withers (resigned 21 May 1861 after second session)
- James Lawrence Orr (took his seat on 17 February 1862 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
- John Gregg
- John Hemphill (died 4 January 1862)
- William Beck Ochiltree, Sr.
- William Simpson Oldham, Sr.
- John Henninger Reagan
- Thomas Neville Waul
- Louis Trezevant Wigfall
Delegates [edit]
Representatives from states to secede after the Battle of Fort Sumter were referred to as delegates, in contrast to the deputies from the original seven states.
See also [edit]
Notes [edit]
- ^ Caplan, p. 57.
Sources [edit]
- Caplan, Russell L. Constitutional Brinksmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention. Oxford University Press, 1988.
