Overview

A comprehensive assembly of public reports documenting the foundation of the Confederate government In 1923, the Southern Historical Society (SHS) published “Proceedings of the Confederate Congress” in its journal, Southern Historical Society Papers. It was the first of nine issues containing congressional minutes from the public sessions of the Confederate Congress that met in Richmond, Virginia, from February 1862 to March 1865. Unlike the summary notations of the official Confederate congressional journals, the “Proceedings” were drawn primarily from the archives of two Richmond, Virginia, newspapers, the Examiner and the Dispatch, which served the Confederacy’s capital city. These journalists’ reports preserved nearly verbatim transcripts of speeches, debates, and bills considered by the Confederate legislature, including details seldom available from other sources, and have proven to be invaluable sources for Confederate political history. “Proceedings of the Confederate Congress” is not without problems, however, chief among them its lack of completeness. Due to lack of resources, SHS president Douglas Southall Freeman was forced to focus exclusively on the sessions of the Regular Confederate Congress beginning in 1862. None of the proceedings of the Montgomery and Richmond Provisional Congresses of 1861 and 1862 were included in the series. With Congress of States, David Carlson fills this void by compiling and editing the minutes of these early legislative sessions from daily press reports published in newspapers in Richmond, Virginia; Montgomery, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, in the process assembling a complete set of transcriptions documenting the creation of the Confederate government. Intended as a primary source and reference for libraries, historians, and political scientists of the nineteenth century, Congress of States provides an introduction explaining the Provisional Confederate Congress and the background and purpose of the book relative to the SHS and its “Proceedings of the Confederate Congress,” a chronology outlining the major events surrounding the secession crisis that informed and influenced the Provisional Congress, annotated minutes for each of Provisional Confederate Congress’s five sessions, and appendices featuring the leadership and committees of the Provisional Congress. Primary source documents are referenced but not included in the proceedings, and examples of the proposed emblem and flags debated as symbols of the Confederacy are also included.

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9780817360917

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Reviews

Congress of States is an impressive undertaking, recovering a crucial and complex year in the history of the United States. Unfolding in time, the documents show a would-be nation taking shape before our eyes, one symbolic and substantive step at a time. --Edward L. Ayers, author of The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America

Author Information

R. David Carlson is lecturer of history at Troy University. He is coauthor of Plain Folk in a Rich Man’s War: Class and Dissent in Confederate Georgia. He has also authored several peer-reviewed articles on Confederate Georgia and Civil War conscription policy.

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