Congress of the Confederate States the Confederate government. The permanent Confederate Constitution served for the duration of the government with only one Amendment on May 21, 1861, when Congress was given the right to draw multiple federal judicial districts in the large states. The reservations of the South Carolina secession convention ratification were never taken up by any other state legislatures. Sitting as the Provisional Congress, the gathering elected Jefferson Davis President of the Confederate States of America on February 9, the day after the Provisional Constitution had been adopted and five days after initially convening in Montgomery. On February 21, a week before it
Economy of the Confederate States of America total US exports by dollar value. Confederate leaders believed that this would give the new nation a firm financial basis. Cotton was the primary export, accounting for seventy-five percent of Southern trade in 1860. The Confederate States entered the war with the hope that its near monopoly of the world cotton trade would force the European importing countries, especially Great Britain and France, to intervene in the war on her behalf. In 1861, Southerners at the local level imposed an embargo on cotton shipments — it was not the government's policy. Millions of bales of cotton went unshipped, and by