Dixie Betrayed by David J. Eicher

no intention of moving the executive branch to Richmond following Congress’s lead.
    Congress again debated the move on May 17, following Davis’s objections, and took a vote three days later. After vigorous
     debate a motion to remove the whole government to Richmond was voted on, and the motion carried by one vote, with the Alabama,
     Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Virginia delegations voting for the move, and Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Georgia
     delegations against. Congress had won out, and Davis lost. Preparations for moving the Confederacy’s capital began in earnest.
    Moving the government was made more complicated by the fact that the government itself was still rather amorphous. Officials
     needed to be chosen, policies established, defensive preparations made, and all the trappings of society reinvented for the
     Southerners on the home front. Lacking time to produce a permanent government, the whole experiment was declared a “provisional
     government” that would explore its workings based on the U.S. Constitution. One discouraged delegate nearly melted at the
     size of the task that lay ahead:
    With no Treasury at command no machinery of government to raise & collect money, no national existence where credit can be
     pledged to get money & if it existed no credit upon which to raise it, no commerce to pay duties, no custom house system to
     give commerce a start, no navy to protect it & no merchant marine with which to carry it on, no army to hold the ports on
     our seaboard, no postal arrangements for conducting intelligence & all these wants in the face of apparently determined policy
     on the part of the old government to act quickly in seizing & closing our ports & cutting of our mail facilities I feel really
     like I was called on to build a great edifice in a short time without any tools or materials to work with. 11
    The Provisional Congress could look at a small but growing list of accomplishments, however. It had produced a provisional
     constitution that attempted to instill state rights into the document, referring in the preamble to “Sovereign and Independent
     States.” The Constitution allowed states to raise peacetime armies and navies, though it did not allow them to make war on
     a foreign nation unless invaded first. The word “United” was excised from the document, “The Republic of Washington” rejected
     as an alternative, and finally, “Confederate” chosen, which according to one delegate, “truly expresses our present condition.” 12
    Vice President Stephens, along with Robert Toombs, pushed for the English cabinet form of government, wherein cabinet officers
     were chosen from within Congress. This was not made mandatory but was possible under the new system, as was simultaneous holding
     of political and military offices—something the United States Constitution forbade. An export tax initiative suggested that
     Congress expected to raise significant funds from exporting tobacco and cotton. Congress would determine judicial districts
     in the New South, and a Supreme Court would be organized from all the district judges.
    The many governmental departments of the Confederacy, although just forming, duplicated the United States system with one
     exception: the Post Office Department. The U.S. postmaster general was operating under a huge deficit, which Southerners felt
     was wasteful and, in effect, a subsidy for businesses. So the Confederate Congress ordered their postmaster to turn a profit
     by March 1, 1863.
    The Confederacy also had to plan for expansion, since Congress saw promise among the border states. Such areas, which might
     support the South or remain behind with the old Union, were critical to the Confederacy’s success. Until April the border
     states had divided loyalties; Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men from the North ended this. In response the Confederate Congress
     had sent commissioners to woo the potential partners. In Missouri the