On the same day on which the Peace Congress opened its sessions in Washington, there came together at Montgomery, in Alabama, delegates from six States for the purpose of forming a Southern Confederacy.  On the third day thereafter a plan for a provisional government, substantially identical with the Constitution of the United States, was adopted.  On February 9 the oath of allegiance was taken, and Jefferson Davis and Alexander H. Stephens were elected respectively President and Vice-President.  On February 13 the military and naval committees were directed to report plans for organizing an army and navy.  Mr. Davis promptly journeyed to Montgomery, making on the way many speeches, in which he told his hearers that no plan for a reconstruction of the old Union would be entertained; and promised that those who should interfere with the new nation would have to “smell Southern powder and to feel Southern steel.”  On February 18 he was inaugurated, and in his address again referred to the “arbitrament of the sword.”  Immediately afterward he announced his cabinet as follows:—­

  Robert Toombs of Georgia, secretary of state. 
  C.G.  Memminger of South Carolina, secretary of the treasury. 
  L.P.  Walker of Alabama, secretary of war. 
  S.R.  Mallory of Florida, secretary of the navy. 
  J.H.  Reagan of Texas, postmaster-general. 
  Judah P. Benjamin of Louisiana, attorney-general.

On March 11 the permanent Constitution was adopted.[121] Thus the machine of the new government was set in working order.  Mr. Greeley gives some interesting figures showing the comparative numerical strength of the sections of the country at this time:[122]—­

The free population of the seven States which had seceded, was 2,656,948 The free population of the eight slave States[123] which had not seceded, was 5,633,005 Total 8,289,953 The slaves in the States of the first list were 2,312,046 The slaves in the States of the second list were 1,638,297 Total of slaves 3,950,343 The population of the whole Union by the census of 1860, was 31,443,321

[Illustration:  Alexander H. Stephens]

The disproportion would have discouraged the fathers of the new nation, if they had anticipated that the North would be resolute in using its overwhelming resources.  But how could they believe that this would be the case when they read the New York “Tribune” and the reports of Mr. Phillips’s harangues?

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