Alexander H. Stephens is sworn in as the first vice president of the new Confederate States of America. The Provisional Congress assembles at Montgomery, Alabama, and approves measures establishing peaceful relations with the United States.
Exploring the most important 55 months in American history
Alexander H. Stephens is sworn in as the first vice president of the new Confederate States of America. The Provisional Congress assembles at Montgomery, Alabama, and approves measures establishing peaceful relations with the United States.
Delegates to the Montgomery convention adopt a constitution, a Congress, and a chief executive. Moderates are generally chosen as officeholders rather than the extremists who worked hardest for secession. The formation of a new southern government takes just five days.
A convention opens in Montgomery as delegates from the seceded states start work on forming a new nation independent of the United States.
Georgia troops seized key points in the state before delegates to the Georgia State Convention at Milledgeville voted 208 to 89 to secede from the United States
President-elect Abraham Lincoln tries to reach out to influential southerners to find some sort of rapidly vanishing middle ground in the unfolding sectional crisis.
Southern states began taking steps toward leaving the Union, while some northerners began talking of keeping the South in the Union, even by force if necessary.