President of the Confederate States of America States Senate; and to remove such representatives and officers. He could fill vacancies during a recess of the Senate, but he could not reappoint, during a recess, persons previously rejected by it. He was to supply Congress with information, recommend legislation, receive ambassadors and other public ministers, see that the federal laws were faithfully executed, and commission all officers of the military and naval forces of the Confederate States. On February 9, 1861, the provisional congress at Montgomery unanimously elected Jefferson Davis president and Alexander H. Stephens vice president. Stephens, who was a delegate to Congress from Georgia, was inaugurated
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