Confederate States presidential election Confederate States presidential election The 1861 Confederate States presidential election was the only presidential election held under the Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis, who had been elected president and Alexander H. Stephens, who had been elected vice president, under the Provisional Confederate States Constitution, were elected to six-year terms (February 22, 1862 – February 22, 1868) as the first permanent President and Vice President of the Confederate States of America. The Provisional Confederate States Congress met at Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4, 1861. A provisional constitution was adopted on February 8, 1861. On February 9,
Confederate States of America Confederacy. The Confederacy later accepted Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither officially declared secession nor were they ever largely controlled by Confederate forces; Confederate shadow governments attempted to control the two states but were later exiled from them. The government of the United States (the Union) rejected the claims of secession and considered the Confederacy illegally founded. The War began with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, a Union fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. No foreign government officially recognized the Confederacy as an independent country, although Great Britain and France granted it