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
Congress of the Confederate States 1861 and February 1862 in the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia. The Virginia secessionist convention was already in session, and after Lincoln's call up of 75,000 troops to secure federal property, on April 17 that convention voted 88 to 55 to seceded. North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas soon after called secessionist conventions that voted to leave the Union by overwhelming majorities. On May 6, 1861, the Confederate Congress officially declared war on the United States and authorized the President all land and naval force in pursuit of the war that had commenced. Arizona secessionists met in convention at La