The formal inauguration of Mr. Davis as Pres ident occurred on February 18, when, in the course of his inaugural address, he said: "We have entered upon the career of independence, and it must be inflexibly pursued. Through many years of controversy with our late asso ciates of the Northern States we have vainly endeavored to secure tranquillity and obtain re spect for the rights to which we were entitled. As a necessity, not a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation, and henceforth our energies must be directed to the conduct of our own affairs, and the perpetuity of the Confed eracy which we have formed. . . With a constitution differing only from that of our fathers in so far as it is explanatory of their well-known intent, freed from sectional conflicts, which have interfered with the pursuit of the general welfare, it is not unreasonable to expect that States from which we have recently parted may seek to unite their fortunes to ours under the government which we have instituted. For this your constitution makes adequate provision; but beyond this, if I mistake not the judgment and will of the people, a reunion with the States from which we have separated is neither prac ticable nor desirable." The constitution of which President Davis thus spoke was intended only for temporary use, and the convention accord ingly, on March II, 1861, adopted and sub ruitted.to the various States for ratification, the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States. In large measure this instrument was identical with the Constitution of the United States, although between the two there were natural divergences of theory, as well as some differences of detail. Thus, the President was made ineligible for reelection, and his term was fixed at six years; a qualified membership in Congress of Cabinet officers was made possi ble; special prohibitive duties were forbidden , ordinary appropriations were made dependent upon a two-thirds vote in each House; and the President was empowered to veto specific por tions of an appropriation bill, while approving other portions. Where opportunity offered. the phrases of the new constitution were so turned as to express the views of the Southern leaders as to sovereignty and as to the proper position of commonwealths in any union or federation. Thus it was specifically stated that each State was "acting in its sovereign and independent character"; that legislative powers were 'dele gated' thereby, rather than 'granted,' and that citizens of one State might 'sojourn' in another State with their slaves without losing any right of property therein. The new constitution was, as the New York Heruld then said, "the Consti tution of the United States with various modifi cations and some very important and most de sirable improvements." The Provisional Congress also made provision for the formation of a permanent army of the Confederacy, proceeded early to establish vari ous sources of public revenue, and promptly attempted to secure from foreign governments both material assistance and formal recognition. The character and work of the army thus organ ized formed possibly the most distinctive feature in the work of the Confederacy. (See CIVIL WAR.) The development of a system of public finance was hampered by the prevalent opposi tion to internal taxes, while the small quantities of dutiable goods imported made the customs duties an inappreciable element in the public revenue. To meet this exigency, special war taxes were levied, repeated issues of treasury notes were made, and very large amounts of bonds were authorized by the new government. Produce loans also were resorted to, and subsi dies or loans to the central government were made by some of the States, so that the first year was passed with -a semblance of financial stability. With the increase of the bond issues, and especially with the abnormal expansion of the currency, prices were forced upward, credit became unsettled, and financial demoralization became pronounced toward the close of the war, when the price of a gold dollar was sixty times its price at the beginning of the war, when boots sold at $200 a pair, and when the price of coffee had increased nearly two hundred times, and the price of cereals nearly ninety times. In seeking to enlist the aid of foreign governments, the steps taken by the Confederacy early gave occa sion for critical relations between England and the United States (see TRENT AFFAIR), and led also to serious diplomatic complications in the later years (sec ALABAMA CLAIMS ) , al though the efforts of this character were to a considerable degree successful and at times reached such a point as to foreshadow foreign intervention, or at least recognition to an extent that would have made the success of the Confed eracy, if not imminent, certainly far less im probable.
The early months of the Confederacy were marked, in addition to the rapid steps of organi zation and of preparation for conflict, by an effort at peaceable adjustment. In response to a
call of the Virginia Legislature, a peace conven tion met at Washington in February, 1861, and delegates from seven slave-holding States, in cluding Tyler and Rives of Virginia, Caruthers of Tennessee, and Clay of Kentucky, took part in its futile proceedings. During the following month there were active at Washington three formally appointed commissioners of the Confed erate Congress—Messrs. Crawford of Georgia, Forsyth of Alabama, and Roman of Louisiana— who endeavored, largely through the mediation or Justice Campbell of the Supreme Court, to secure recognition and to arrange some reason able basis of at least a temporary settlement, pending more forma] negotiations. This effort also proved abortive through a M isu nder stan d i ng, involving charges of breach of faith, as to the relief of Fort Sumter. With the withdrawal of these commissioners from Washington and the disappearance of any possibility of voluntary recognition by the Northern Government, the position of the Confederacy was more clearly defined. Its strength, moreover, was increased by the secession of Virginia on April 17, of North Carolina on May 20, and of Tennessee on June 8, so that there were eleven States in the new union when its Congress met for its third session on July 20, at the new capital of the Con federacy, Richmond, Va. Upon the 6th of No vember were held the first general elections under the permanent constitution, resulting in the choice by a unanimous electoral vote of Davis as President. and Stephens as Vice-Presi dent. The fourth and last session of the Provi sional Congress closed on February IS, 1862, when the new Senate and House assembled, in cluding in their membership such men as Clay and Yancey of Alabama, Hunter of Vir ginia, and \Vigfall of Texas. Upon the 22d Davis was formally inaugurated as Presi dent for a term of six years, but the re maining years of his service were distin guished not so much by his administrative ser vices as by the conflict between the civil and military elements, and by such controversies as that over the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, the whole situation gradually becoming more and more abnormal, and being to some ex tent typified by the studied omission to provide for the creation of a supreme court. The course of the President in his official career provoked at the time much severe criticism, and later occa sioned a variety of comment. Of his election one recent writer says that "the choice was the best that could have been made," while another equally competent critic describes the situation as follows: "The strongest and most self-assertive spirit of the senatorial clique, having been chosen President, at once began to quarrel with his as sociates, and to drive them from his counsels: there was no popular strength in the Provisional Congress to resist him; and even before the in auguration of the permanent government, the Confederacy had become a military despotism of the executive." Such a tendency was increased by the custom of holding secret sessions of Con gress and by the practice of Cabinet officers ex ercising their right to sit in Congress, as well as by the gradual lowering of the political morale and independence of that body. This unfortu nate condition of affairs was further complicated by personal controversies among officials, both civil and military, in the highest, stations, so that the later months of the administration of the Confederacy were such as to indicate the approach either of internal crisis or of complete dissolution, and such as to make the collapse of the Government, on the fall of its capital, a nat ural and inevitable event. The first Congress under the permanent constitution had held four sessions, and the second CongresS had held two sessions, the final adjournment of the body hav ing been taken on March 18, 1865. The Cabinet officials who served the Confederacy were as fol lows: Secretary of State, Robert Toombs, of Georgia. February 21, 1861 R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, July 30, 1861 ; Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, February 7, 1862. Secretary of the Treasury, Charles G. Memminger, of South Car olina, February 21, 1861; George A. Trenholm, of South Carolina, June 13, 1864. Secretary of War, L. P. Walker, of Alabama, February 21, 1861; Judah P. Benjamin. of Louisiana. No vember 10, 1861; G. W. Randolph, of Virginia. March 17, 1862; James A. Seddon. of Virginia, March 22, 1862; John C. Breckenridge, of Ken tucky, February 15, 1865. Secretary of the Navy, Stephen R. Mallory, of Florida, INlarch 4, ]S61. Attorney-general, Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisi ana, February 21, 1861; Thomas H. Watts. of Alabama, September 10, 1861; George Davis of North Carolina, November 10. 1863. Postmaster General, John 11. Reagan, of Texas, March 6, 1861.