Provisional Constitution of the Confederate States district court systems into one district system where each state comprised one district. The Provisional Constitution was then unanimously ratified near midnight on February 8, 1861 and was signed by all present members at noon the day of Jefferson Davis's inaugural address on February 18, 1861. There are fifty signatures in all, including those of the Texas delegation who were admitted on March 2. The Provisional Constitution was nullified with the ratification of the permanent Constitution of the Confederate States of America on March 11, 1861. The framers of the Provisional Constitution used the Constitution of the United States as
Confederate States of America and states' rights. Historian Emory Thomas assessed the Confederacy's self-image by studying the correspondence sent by the Confederate government in 1861–62 to foreign governments. He found that Confederate diplomacy projected multiple contradictory self-images: In what later became known as the Cornerstone Speech, C.S. Vice President Alexander H. Stephens declared that the "cornerstone" of the new government "rest[ed] upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery – subordination to the superior race – is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based