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[101] ripe experience and statesmanlike grasp of the situation — men of large knowledge, with calm, strong, clear views of the policies to be pursued. Alexander H. Stephens characterized this convention as “the ablest body with which he ever served, and singularly free from revolutionary spirit.” 1

In the organization of the convention, Howell Cobb was chosen to preside, and J. J. Hooper, of Montgomery, to act as secretary. It was decided to organize a provisional government under a provisional constitution, which was adopted on the 8th of February. On the 9th a provisional President and Vice-President were elected, who were installed in office on the 18th to carry the government into effect. In regard to this election, it was agreed that when four delegations out of the six should settle upon men, the election should take place. Jefferson Davis was put forward by the Mississippi delegation and Howell Cobb by that of Georgia. The Florida delegation proposed to vote for whomsoever South Carolina should support. The South Carolina delegation offered no candidate and held no meeting to confer upon the matter. The chairman, Mr. R. Barnwell Rhett, 2 did not call them together. Mr. Barnwell, however, was an active supporter of Mr. Davis, and it was afterward said that while in Washington in December, as a commissioner to treat for the evacuation of Fort Sumter, he had committed himself to Mr. Davis. At any rate, he was zealous. Colonel Keitt afterward stated to the writer and others in Charleston that

William L. Yancey, member of the Confederate Senate, Confederate Commissioner to Europe in 1861. from a photograph.

1 The deputies elected to meet at the Montgomery convention were: South Carolina, R. Barnwell Rhett, Lawrence M. Keitt, C. G. Memminger, Thomas J. Withers, Robert W. Barnwell, James Chesnut, Jr., W. Porcher Miles, and William W. Boyce; Florida, Jackson Morton, James B. Owens, and J. Patton Anderson; Mississippi, Wiley P. Harris, W. S. Wilson, Walker Brooke, Alexander M. Clayton, James T. Harrison, William S. Barry, and J. A. P. Campbell; Alabama, Richard W. Walker, Colin J. McRae, William P. Chilton, David P. Lewis, Robert H. Smith, John Gill Shorter, Stephen F. Hale, Thomas Fearn, and Jabez L. M. Curry; Georgia, Robert Toombs, Martin J. Crawford, Benjamin H. Hill, Augustus R. Wright, Augustus H. Kenan, Francis S. Bartow, Eugenius A. Nisbet, Howell Cobb, Thomas R. R. Cobb, and Alexander H. Stephens; Louisiana, John Perkins, Jr., Charles M. Conrad, Edward Sparrow, Alexander De Clouet, Duncan F. Kenner, and Henry Marshall. The Texas delegates were not appointed until February 14th.

These delegates had been appointed by the conventions of their respective States on the ground that the people had intrusted the State conventions with unlimited powers. They constituted both the convention that organized the Confederacy and its Provisional Congress. On the 8th of February the Provisional Constitution was adopted, to be in force one year. On the 9th was passed the first enactment, providing “That all the laws of the United States of America in force and in use in the Confederate States of America on the first day of November last, and not inconsistent with the Constitution of the Confederate States, be and the same are hereby continued in force until altered or repealed by the Congress.” The next act, adopted February 14th, continued in office until April 1st all officers connected with the collection of customs, and the assistant treasurers, with the same powers and functions as under the Government of the United States. An act of the 25th of February declared the peaceful navigation of the Mississippi River free to the citizens of any of the States upon its borders, or upon the borders of its navigable tributaries. On the 25th of February a commission to the Government of the United States, for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations and for the settlement of all questions of disagreement between the two governments, was appointed and confirmed. The commissioners were A. B. Roman, of Louisiana, Martin J. Crawford, of Georgia, and John Forsyth, of Alabama. An act of February 26th provided for the repeal of all laws which forbade the employment in the coasting trade of vessels not enrolled or licensed, and all laws imposing discriminating duties on foreign vessels or goods imported in them. This Provisional Congress of one House held four sessions, as follows: I. February 4th-March 16th, 1861; II. April 29th May 22d, 1861; III. July 20th-August 22d, 1861; IV. November 18th, 1861-February 17th, 1862; the first and second of these at Montgomery, the third and fourth at Richmond, whither the Executive Department was removed late in May, 1861,--because of “the hostile demonstrations of the United States Government against Virginia,” as Mr. Davis says in his Rise and fall of the Confederate Government.--editors.

2 Father of the writer.-editors.

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