The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 19, July 1915 - April, 1916 Page: 213

THE
SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
VOL. XIX JANUARY, 1916 No. 3
The publication committee and the editors disclaim responsibility for views expressed by
contributors to THE QUARTERLY
JEFFERSON DAVIS AND THE CONFEDERATE
CONGRESS
ROBERT G. CLELAND
Many historians have written upon the Civil War from the
military standpoint, but not until recently has attention been given
to the vital economic and governmental problems of the period.
In the following article upon one of these important non-military
subjects the author realizes he has made only a preliminary survey
of a very wide field, but the work will not be entirely valueless if
someone else is led to go deeper into it.
As the sessions of the Confederate Congress were closed to the
public and secrecy strictly maintained as to the most of its pro-
ceedings, while no records were kept of its debates, the account of
any of its activities must necessarily be based upon fragmentary
sources. From these, however, it is possible to derive a fairly
accurate picture of those internal dissensions between the President
and Congress against which the fortunes of the Confederacy had
to contend. No attempt has been made in this article to portray
the effect of such disagreements in specific instances; the aim has
been rather to show in what fashion the government was conducted
and over what questions the legislative and executive branches
were divided.
The Confederate Government was first set into operation by the
Southern constitutional convention, which met at Montgomery,
Alabama, on the 4th of February, 1861.1 After adopting a
'For the genesis of the Montgomery Convention, see Gerson in the
Report of the American Historical Association, 1910, pp. 181-187.