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LEFT CONFEDERATION" 104 CONFISCATION erates mustered into service only 600,000 men in all. The South had to depend upon scant resources and material, and had no cause to be ashamed of its leaders, but could proudly point to its soldier-President, Jefferson Davis, and its generals, such as Robert Edward Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, P. G. T. Beauregard, "Stonewall" Jackson, Bed- ford Forrest, J. E. B. Stuart, Stephen D. Lee, Richard Taylor, Fitzhugh Lee, Wade Hampton, Kirby Smith, W. J. Hardee, John B. Gordon, Jubal A. Early, and others. The Constitution of the Confederate States was modeled after that of the Federal Constitution, and in some im- portant differences has won the approval of even Northern statesmen. It recog- nized Almighty God and invoked His favor and guidance. It guarded care- fully the doctrine of the "sovereignty of each State." It expressly forbade the slave trade, or the importation of slaves from any foreign country other than the slave-holding States and Territories of the United States. It forbade "bounties" or "trusts" of any kind, and provided a ''tariff for revenue." It gave Cabinet officers the privileges of the floors of its Congress, allowed the President to veto any part of a bill and approve the remainder, giving his reasons for such action, and fixed the term of office of the President at six years and made him ineligible for a second term. The "Confederate States of America" passed away, but its survivors, their children and their children's children may proudly claim that in four short years the Confederacy made a name and a history which "the world will not will- ingly let die." See Civil War, Ameri- can. CONFEDEBATION, ARTICLES OF, a form of constitution adopted by the Continental Congress of the United States in 1777 and ratified by the colonies in the next four years. It provided for a Congress of one house only, in which each State should have one vote. This body was empowered to declare war and peace, make treaties with foreign powers, regulate the value of coin, etc., but as it had no power to enforce its laws upon the States, it soon fell into contempt and on March 4, 1798, expired by limitation under the provisions of the present Con- stitution. CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE, the league of Germanic States formed by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806, and includ- ing Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, Baden, Hesse- Darmstadt, the Kingdom of Westphalia, etc. It extended over 125,160 square miles, and comprised 14,608,877 inhab- itants. The princes undertook to raise collectively a large body of troops in event of war, and established a diet at Frankfort; but the failure of Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812 shook the structure, and the league soon after broke up. It was succeeded by a new league, the Germanic Confederation. See Ger- many. CONFERENCE, in diplomacy, a meet- ing of the representatives of different powers for the purpose of adjusting differences; also, an annual gathering of the ministers, now with a certain number of lay representatives of the several Methodist congregations, to deliberate upon the affairs of the religious denomi- nation to which they belong; also a meet- ing not held at stated intervals, but ar- ranged to adjust some difference which may exist betwen Churches or sections of Churches. Many conferences have taken place abroad between Churches or parties in Churches. Thus there were conferences between Lutherans and Roman Catholics at Ratisbon in A. D. 1601; one in 1685 between John Claude, of the French Re- formed Church, and James Benigne Bos- suet, a Roman Catholic; and one at Thorn in 1645, with the view of reconcil- ing the Lutherans and the Reformed Churches; but the conference to which the name is most frequently applied in England was that at Hampton Court. The Hampton Court conference was a conference between King James I. of England, immediately after his accession to the English throne, and the represent- atives of the Anglican and the Puritan parties in the Church, which first met Jan. 14, 1604, and lasted three days. CONFERVA, a genus of algals, the typical of the sub-order confervess and the order confervaceae. Most of the species are marine, though a few are fresh-water. Rabenhorst describes 30 in all. CONFERVACE.aE, an order of flower- less plants, alliance algales. They are water-plants, generally green, but occa- sionally olive, violet, and red; most of them are found in fresh water, attached or floating, some in salt water, and a few in both. The confervaceae bear the lichens ccenogonium and cystocoleus. CONFESSIONAL, in Roman Catholic churches and chapels, a kind of inclosed seat in which the priest sits to hear persons confess their sins. CONFISCATION, the act of condemn- ing as forfeited, and adjudging to the public treasury, the goods of a criminal