Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 70

These newly independent states decided to unite in another compact, one more to their liking. A new Constitution was quickly adopted, very much like the original (except for ironclad guarantees of slavery, a six-year term for the president, and increased power to the sovereign states). On February 18, a new nation, the Confederate States of America, was established in Montgomery, Alabama.

Jefferson Davis, former Mississippi senator, heroic Mexican-American War veteran, one-time secretary of war, and strong supporter of Southern rights, became the first president. One of Davis’s first acts as president was to call for 100,000 volunteers to serve the new Confederacy as soldiers for a period of 12 months. Davis didn’t anticipate trouble, but he wasn’t going to take any chances.

As a matter of course, the new Confederacy began taking control of all federal property within its territory. Military installations, post offices, and customs houses came routinely under control of the Confederate government. All but the two most important pieces of federal property, Fort Pickens at Pensacola and Fort Sumter at Charleston, fell under Confederate control. A few days earlier, the delegates who had formed the new government met in session as the first Confederate Congress and authorized the use of force, if necessary, to remove U.S. troops from Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. For the new Confederacy, Sumter was a bone in its throat. As long as Sumter remained in the hands of the United States, the new government had little claim to legitimacy as an independent country.