377. The "Confederate States of America."

The next step was for these states to join together to form a confederation. This work was done by a convention of delegates chosen by the conventions of the seven seceding states. These delegates met at Montgomery, Alabama. Their new constitution closely resembled the Constitution of the United States. But great care was taken to make it perfectly clear that each member of the Confederacy was a sovereign state. Exceeding care was also taken that slavery should be protected in every way. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was chosen provisional president, and Alexander H. Stephens provisional vice-president.

Davis declared that Lincoln had "made a distinct declaration of war upon our (Southern) institutions." His election was "upon the basis of sectional hostility." If "war must come, it must be on Northern and not on Southern soil… We will carry war … where food for the sword and torch awaits our armies in the densely populated cities" of the North. For his part, Stephens said the new government's "foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man."

At first it seemed as if Davis was right when he said the Northerners would not fight. General Scott, commanding the army, suggested that the "erring sisters" should be allowed to "depart in peace," and Seward seemed to think the same way. The Abolitionists welcomed the secession of the slave states. Horace Greeley, for instance, wrote that if those states chose to form an independent nation, "they had a clear moral right so to do." For his part, President Buchanan thought that no state could constitutionally secede. But if a state should secede, he saw no way to compel it to come back to the Union. So he sat patiently by and did nothing.