Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/396



N the 4th day of February, 1861, the date on which the Peace Conference met, the delegates from se ceded States gathered in the city of Montgomery, Alabama. Seven Independent Republics, each covering territory nearly the extent of some European kingdoms, while all united would make an empire, had commissioned their delegates to form a Union under a written constitution. These Republics were South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. By separate, independent action, each had withdrawn from the United States, and each had determined to form by the union of all in a national form, a Republican Government of Confederate States, whose right to exist should be peaceably recognized by all nations. The Convention was at first composed of forty-three delegates from six States, but subsequently Texas entered, making the seven States of the provisional Confederacy. Within the hall where they assembled were suspended the portraits of Washington, Marion, Andrew Jackson, Clay, and other deceased distinguished American patriots, while living actors in the present great civic event were