Provisional Confederate States Congress

The Provisional Confederate States Congress, for a time the legislative branch of the Confederate States of America, was the body which drafted the Confederate States Constitution, elected Jefferson Davis as Provisional Confederate States President, and designed the first Confederate flag. Unlike the later bicameral Confederate States Congress, the Provisional Congress consisted of only one house and its members were referred to as deputies and delegates.

The Congress was first organized as the Montgomery Convention, which marked the formal beginning of the Confederate States of America. Convened in Montgomery, Alabama, the Convention organized a provisional government for the Confederacy and created the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. It opened in the chambers of the Alabama Senate on February 4, 1861. On February 8, the Convention adopted the Provisional Confederate States Constitution, and so became the first session of the Provisional Confederate Congress.^[1] John Tyler, the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845), served as a delegate from Virginia in the Provisional Confederate States Congress until his death in 1862.

Sessions

• First Session February 4, 1861 – March 16, 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama
• Second Session April 29, 1861 – May 21, 1861 in Montgomery, Alabama
• Third Session July 20, 1861 – August 31, 1861 in Richmond, Virginia
• Fourth Session September 3, 1861 (called) in Richmond, Virginia
• Fifth Session November 18, 1861 – February 17, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia

Leadership

President of the Provisional Congress

• Howell Cobb, Sr. of Georgia – February 4, 1861 – February 17, 1862

President pro tempore

• Robert Woodward Barnwell of South Carolina – February 4, 1861
• Thomas Stanley Bocock of Virginia – December 10–21, 1861 and January 7–8, 1862
• Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell of Mississippi – December 23–24, 1861 and January 6, 1862

Members

Deputies

Deputies from the first seven states to secede formed the first two sessions of the Congress.

Alabama

• William Parish Chilton, Sr.
• Jabez Lamar Monroe Curry
• Thomas Fearn (resigned March 16, 1861 after first Session)
  • Nicholas Davis, Jr. (took his seat on April 29, 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
• Stephen F. Hale
• David Peter Lewis (resigned March 16, 1861 after first Session)
  • Henry Cox Jones (took his seat on April 29, 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
• Colin J. McRae
• John Gill Shorter (resigned November 1861)
  • Cornelius Robinson (took his seat on April 29, 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy; resigned January 24, 1862)
• Robert Hardy Smith
• Richard Wilde Walker

Florida

• James Patton Anderson (resigned April 8, 1861)
  • George Taliaferro Ward (took his seat on May 2, 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy; resigned February 5, 1862)
  • John Pease Sanderson (took his seat on February 5, 1862 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
• Jackson Morton
• James Byeram Owens

Georgia

• Francis Stebbins Bartow (killed July 21, 1861 at the First Battle of Bull Run)
  • Thomas Marsh Forman (took his seat on August 7, 1861 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
• Howell Cobb, Sr.
• Thomas Reade Rootes Cobb
• Martin Jenkins Crawford
• Benjamin Harvey Hill
• Augustus Holmes Kenan
• Eugenius Aristides Nisbet (resigned December 10, 1861)
  • Nathan Henry Bass, Sr. (took his seat on January 14, 1862 – Appointed to fill vacancy)
• Alexander Hamilton Stephens
• Robert Augustus Toombs
• Augustus Romaldus Wright

Louisiana

• Charles Magill Conrad
• Alexandre Etienne de Clouet
• Duncan Farrar Kenner
• Henry Marshall
• John Perkins, Jr.
• Edward Sparrow

Mississippi

• William Taylor Sullivan Barry
• Walker Brooke
• Josiah Abigail Patterson Campbell
• Alexander Mosby Clayton (resigned May 11, 1861)
  • Alexander Blackburn Bradford (took his seat on December 5, 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)
• Wiley Pope Harris
• James Thomas Harrison
• William Sydney Wilson (resigned March 16, 1861 after first session)
  • Jehu Amaziah Orr (took his seat on April 29, 1861 – Elected to fill vacancy)

South Carolina

• Robert Woodward Barnwell
• William Waters Boyce
• James Chesnut, Jr.
• Laurence Massillon Keitt
• Christopher Gustavus Memminger
• William Porcher Miles
• Robert Barnwell Rhett, Sr.
• Thomas Jefferson Withers (resigned May 21, 1861 after second session)
  • James Lawrence Orr (took his seat on February 17, 1862 – Appointed to fill vacancy)

Texas

• John Gregg
• John Hemphill (died January 4, 1862)
• William Beck Ochiltree, Sr.
• William Simpson Oldham, Sr.
• John Henninger Reagan
• Thomas Neville Waul
• Louis Trezevant Wigfall

Delegates

Representatives from states to secede after the Battle of Fort Sumter were referred to as delegates, in contrast to the deputies from the original seven states.

Arkansas Augustus Hill Garland Robert Ward Johnson Albert Rust Hugh French Thomason William Wirt Watkins Kentucky Henry Cornelius Burnett Theodore Legrand Burnett John Milton Elliott George Washington Ewing Samuel Howard Ford George Baird Hodge Thomas Johnson Thomas Bell Monroe John J. Thomas Daniel Price White Missouri Caspar Wistar Bell John Bullock Clark, Sr. Aaron H. Conrow William Mordecai Cooke, Sr. Thomas W. Freeman Thomas Alexander Harris Robert Ludwell Yates Peyton George Graham Vest Delegate-elect Hyer never took his seat North Carolina William Waightstill Avery Francis Burton Craige Allen Turner Davidson George Davis Thomas David Smith McDowell John Motley Morehead Richard Clauselle Puryear Thomas Hart Ruffin William Nathan Harrell Smith Abraham Watkins Venable

Tennessee John DeWitt Clinton Atkins Robert Looney Caruthers David Maney Currin William Henry DeWitt John Ford House Thomas McKissick Jones James Houston Thomas Virginia Thomas Stanley Bocock Alexander Boteler John White Brockenbrough Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter Robert Johnston William Hamilton MacFarland James Mason Walter Preston William Ballard Preston Roger Atkinson Pryor William Cabell Rives Charles Wells Russell Robert Eden Scott James Alexander Seddon Waller Redd Staples John Tyler (died January 18, 1862) Arizona Territory Granville Henderson Oury

See also

• First Confederate Congress
• Second Confederate Congress

Notes

1. Caplan, p. 57.

Sources

• Caplan, Russell L. Constitutional Brinksmanship: Amending the Constitution by National Convention. Oxford University Press, 1988.

Coordinates: 32°22′36″N 86°17′56″W / 32.37667°N 86.29889°W