C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America (C.S.A.) after Republican Abraham Lincoln is elected president in the 1860 election, due to fears over the abolition of the ownership of Negro slaves. The C.S.A. engage with the Union in "The War of Northern Aggression"; following the Union victory in the Battle of Antietam, President Lincoln issues a revolutionary proclamation entitled the "Emancipation Proclamation," but—within this alternate history—the proclamation fails. Confederate President Jefferson Davis takes this opportunity to counteract the Proclamation and send politician Judah P. Benjamin to persuade the United Kingdom and France to provide military and
Confederate States of America government. Confederate district courts were authorized by Article III, Section 1, of the Confederate Constitution, and President Davis appointed judges within the individual states of the Confederate States of America. In many cases, the same US Federal District Judges were appointed as Confederate States District Judges. Confederate district courts began reopening in early 1861, handling many of the same type cases as had been done before. Prize cases, in which Union ships were captured by the Confederate Navy or raiders and sold through court proceedings, were heard until the blockade of southern ports made this impossible. After a Sequestration Act