Confederate States

The Confederate States of America (also called the Confederacy, the Confederate States, and CSA) was the government formed by eleven southern states of the United States of America between 1861 and 1865. more...

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However, since the CSA was never recognized by other countries, by international law and custom, it was never a de jure independent country. Its de facto control over its claimed territory varied during the war, and was linked to the fortunes of its military in battle.

Seven states declared their independence from the United States before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as President; four more did so after the Civil War began at the Battle of Fort Sumter. The United States of America ("The Union") held secession illegal and refused recognition of the Confederacy. Although British and French commercial interests sold it warships and materials, no European nation officially recognized the CSA.

The CSA effectively collapsed when Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston surrendered their armies in April 1865. The last meeting of its Cabinet took place in Georgia in May. Nearly all remaining Confederate forces surrendered by the end of June. A decade-long process known as Reconstruction temporarily gave civil rights and the right to vote to the freedmen, expelled ex-Confederate leaders from office, and re-admitted the states to representation in Congress.

History

Causes of secession

By 1860 sectional disagreements between North and South revolved primarily around the maintenance or expansion of slavery. Related and intertwined issues also fueled the dispute; these secondary differences (real or perceived) included tariffs, agrarianism vs. industrialization, and states rights. The immediate spark for secession was the victory of the Republican Party and the election of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election. Civil War historian James McPherson wrote:

Most European countries recognized the CSA as a nation and traded with it. Lincoln did all kinds of threats trying to stop this trade and recognition by those countries !

Four of the seceding states, the Deep South states of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia , and Texas, issued formal declarations of causes, each of which identified the threat to slaveholders’ rights as the cause of, or a major cause of, secession; Georgia also claimed a general Federal policy of favoring Northern over Southern economic interests. In what later came to be known as the Cornerstone Speech, C.S. Vice President Alexander Stephens declared that the "cornerstone" of the new government "rest upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth".

Read more at Wikipedia.org