150-Year Anniversary ยท February 1861
Delegates from the seceded states gathered at Montgomery, Alabama, and on February 4, 1861, organized the provisional government of the Confederate States of America. Within days they had drafted a constitution closely modeled on the United States Constitution but with explicit protections for slavery.
On February 9 the convention selected Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as provisional president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia as vice president. Davis, a former U.S. senator and secretary of war, was inaugurated in Montgomery on February 18.
In Washington a Peace Conference of border and northern delegates met to seek a settlement, while president-elect Lincoln traveled by a winding route toward the capital. None of the compromise proposals could bridge the divide over slavery in the territories.
The Confederate government formed in February still had to fight a continental war. How that war unfolded is outlined on the main American Civil War page.