Video: 'The Confederate States of America'

(Friday, February 8, 1861, at around midnight local time) — The Confederate States of America (CSA), an unrecognized breakaway state that fought against the United States of America during the American Civil War, was formed late tonight in the Alabama Capitol at Montgomery when representatives from seven secessionist slave states unanimously ratified a Provisional Constitution.

Convinced that white supremacy and the institution of slavery were threatened by the November 1860 election of Republican presidential nominee Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency, on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories, the Confederacy declared its secession in rebellion against the United States, with the loyal states becoming known as the Union.

All seven of the Confederate states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) were located in the southeasternmost region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture — particularly cotton — and a plantation system that relied upon enslaved Africans for labor.

Four other slave states would join the CSA in the next three months, including Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.