Legislature of Virginia. The commissioners were sent, were
graciously received, were accorded seats in the Congress, but
they exerted no influence on the course of its action.

The Congress speedily organized a provisional Government for the
Confederate States of America. The Constitution of the United
States, rather hastily reconsidered, became with a few inevitable
alterations the Constitution of the Confederacy.* Davis was
unanimously elected President; Stephens, Vice-President.
Provision was made for raising an army. Commissioners were
dispatched to Washington to negotiate a treaty with the United
States; other commissioners were sent to Virginia to attempt to
withdraw that great commonwealth from the Union.

* To the observer of a later age this document appears a thing of
haste. Like the framers of the Constitution of 1787, who omitted
from their document some principles which they took for granted,
the framers of 1861 left unstated their most distinctive views.
The basal idea upon which the revolution proceeded, the right of
secession, is not to be found in the new Constitution. Though the
preamble declares that the States are acting in their sovereign
and independent character, the new Confederation is declared
"permanent." In the body of the document are provisions similar
to those in the Federal Constitution enabling a majority of
two-thirds of the States to amend at their pleasure, thus
imposing their will upon the minority. With three notable
exceptions the new Constitution, subsequent to the preamble, does
little more than restate the Constitution of 1787 rearranged so
as to include those basal principles of the English law added to
the earlier Constitution by the first eight amendments. The three