Congress of the Confederate States

Confederate States Congress
Type
Type	Bicameral
Houses	Senate, House of Representatives
Leadership
President of the Senate	Alexander H. Stephens
President pro tempore	Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter
President pro tempore ad interim	William Alexander Graham
Speaker of the House	Thomas Stanley Bocock
Members	135 26 Senators 109 Representatives
Meeting place
Confederate Capitol Richmond, Virginia

The Congress of the Confederate States was the legislative body of the Confederate States of America, existing during the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865. Like the United States Congress, the Confederate Congress consisted of two houses: the Confederate Senate, whose membership included two senators from each state (chosen by their state legislature), and the Confederate House of Representatives, with members popularly elected by residents of the individual states.

Sessions

Deputies from the first seven states to secede from the Union, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas, met at the Provisional Confederate Congress in Montgomery, Alabama, in two sessions in February through May 1861. They drafted and approved the Confederate States Constitution, elected Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States and designed the Confederate flag.

Following the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861, the remaining states to secede sent delegates to the Confederate Congress, which met in three additional sessions between July 1861 and February 1862 in the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia.

Elections for the First Confederate Congress were held on November 6, 1861. While Congressional elections in the United States were held in even-numbered years, elections for Confederate Congressman occurred in odd-numbered years. The First Confederate Congress met in four sessions in Richmond.

Because of the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, only two Congressional elections were ever held; the Second Confederate Congress was selected in November 1863 but served only one year of its two-year term. The final session of the Confederate Congress adjourned on March 18, 1865. That month, one of its final acts was the passage of a law allowing for the emancipation and military induction of any slave willing to fight for the Confederacy. This measure had originally been proposed by Judah P. Benjamin a year earlier but met stiff opposition until the final months of the war, when it was endorsed by Robert E. Lee. The final sentence recorded in the proceedings of the Confederate Congress reads "The hour of 2 o'clock having arrived, / The Speaker announced that the House stood adjourned sine die." (7 J. Conf. Cong. 796 (Mar. 18, 1865)).

The Confederacy did not have political parties but the Congress was dominated by former Democrats. While the 1863 elections had a low turnout, it threw out many secessionist and pro-Davis incumbents in favor of former Whigs. This weakened the administration's ability to get their policies through Congress.

Legislation

• An act to prohibit the importation of luxuries, or of articles not necessaries or of common use
• The Partisan Ranger Act
• The Bounty Law(s)

Apportionment and representation

The Confederate Congress had delegations from 13 states, territories and Indian tribes. The 12th and 13th stars on the Confederate banner were for Kentucky and Missouri. These states maintained full delegations in both the U.S. and C.S. congresses throughout the war.

Except for the four states west of the Mississippi River (Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas) all Confederate states' apportionment in the U.S. Congress was going to decline into the 1860s. In the Confederate Congress, all would have larger delegations than they had from the census of 1850, except South Carolina, which was equal, and Missouri, which declined by one.

The Confederate Congress maintained representation in Virginia, Tennessee and Louisiana throughout its existence. Unlike the U.S. Congress, there was no requirement for a majority of the voters in 1860 to vote for representatives for them to be seated. From 1861-1863, Virginia (east, north and west), Tennessee and Louisiana had U.S. representation. Then, for 1863–1865, only the newly made West Virginia had U.S. representation. Although Tennessee was not said to be in rebellion by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, by March, it had no representation in the U.S. Congress.

	Apportionment[1]
#	State	US 1850	US 1860	CSA
1.	Virginia**	13	11	16
2.	Tennessee**	10	8	11
3.	Georgia	8	7	10
3.	North Carolina	8	7	10
5.	Alabama	7	6	9
6.	Louisiana**	4	5	6
6.	Mississippi	5	5	7
8.	South Carolina	6	4	6
8.	Texas	2	4	6
10.	Arkansas	2	3	4
11.	Florida	1	1	2
--	Kentucky**	10	9	12
--	Missouri**	7	9	6

Depictions in media

The 1989 motion picture Glory portrayed an act of the Confederate Congress to execute black troops as well as white officers captured in command of them. This was loosely based on a proclamation passed by Jefferson Davis calling for the return of any African American taken as a prisoner of war to respective state governments where they were to be receive "punishment in accordance with the laws of the said state" as slaves bearing arms. The same law also called for similar penalties for white officers in command of black troops as well as execution of white officers who were then serving under the command of Benjamin Butler "as robbers and criminals deserving death." The last measure was due in part to Butler's General Order No. 28.^[2]

Apart from Glory, a passing mention of the Confederate Congress is made in the mini-series Roots. In the final episode of the series, set during Reconstruction, a former Confederate Congress Senator named Arthur Johnson (played by Burl Ives) arrives in the local county to begin several business ventures including buying up all available land and keeping the black population from leaving through heavy interest on sharecropping supplies. The mini-series depicts the senator as being highly respected by the white population, seemingly to imply that even after the Civil War ex-Confederate Congress members were still regarded with a sense of reverence.

See also

• First Confederate Congress
• List of members of the Confederate Senate
• Provisional Confederate Congress
• Second Confederate Congress

References

1. ^ Apportionment of the US Congress
2. ^ Proclamation by the Confederate President

Further reading

• The Federal and the Confederate Constitutions, for use of Government Officers, and for the People. Arranged in parallel columns. With the differences indicated, for convenient reference and comparison. Publisher: Columbus, Ohio. J. Walter & Co.,1863.
• The Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Document No. 234 of the U.S. Serial Set, 58th Congress, 2nd session. Publisher: Washington, D.C. : United States Senate, 1904–1905
• The Making of the Confederate Constitution, Publications of the Southern History Association vol. IX, no.5,. Publisher: Washington, D.C. : Southern History Association, 1897–1907