John Henry Brown was a painter of portrait miniatures, living and working in Philadelphia. He had met Lincoln in August of 1860 when he was commissioned to paint Lincoln’s portrait for a supporter, but although Brown liked Lincoln personally, he did not agree with Republican policies.
Transcript:
At Mrs. Conovers picture. Margies eye is better. Congress has done nothing during the week towards a settlement, nor has the Peace Convention in session at Washington done any thing as yet.
Citation: John Henry Brown (1818-1891), autograph journal/account book. Philadelphia, 1844-1890. AMs 574/14.1
February 8–Confederate Constitution adopted. It is almost word for word the same as the United States Constitution with the following differences:
Summary of Changes
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America is almost an exact carbon copy of the Constitution of the United States of America. If fact, most of the changes consisted of nothing more than of replacing the phrase “United States” with new moniker, “Confederate States”; and updating the archaic spelling and phrasing in the original Constitution (Such as replacing the antiquated word “chuse” with the more modern spelling of “choose”).
This is not to say that there weren’t any real differences from the “old” constitution. By my count, there were 15 significant changes made to constitution. And, despite what you might believe, most of those changes had nothing to do with slavery. Only 3 changes strengthened the institution of slavery, and 2 of them actually weakened it by prohibiting the future importation of slaves. Most of the revisions dealt with limiting the power of federal government (and specifically, limits on the how Congress was permitted to spend money).
1. The president was given “Line-Item Veto” authority. (Article 1, Section 7, Paragraph 2) This would have allowed the president to trim a lot of “pork” from spending bills.
2. Additional limits on how congress may spend taxpayer’s money.
a. (1.8.1) Limit wasteful government spending – The original U.S. Constitution gave congress the ability to spend money to “(pay debts) and provide for the general welfare of the United States.” But since just about any government spending could be said to “provide for the general welfare”, this phrase was used to excuse a lot of governmental excesses. The confederacy replaced this broad phrase with wording that only permitted congress to spend money on things that were necessary in order to “carry on the Government”.
b. (1.8.1) Congress was prohibited from offering bounties. This provision may have been spawned by the fact that the federal government put bounties on some of the “rebels” after they ceded from the union.
c. (1.8.1) Limit Congress’ ability to engage in “Trade Wars” – Congress could not tax imports, if the tax was intended to help promote or foster any particular branch of industry. (i.e. Congress couldn’t place a tax on Honda motorcycles in order to help Harley-Davidson)
d. (1.8.3) Limit a Congressman’s ability to siphon large amounts of money back into his own district – Congress was prohibited from spending federal dollars for any “internal improvement intended to facilitate commerce”. This prevented “influential” politicians from diverting large sums of tax-payer’s money into their own district. (Every state would be forced to pay for its own improvements, regardless of how much power their representatives possessed.)
e. (1.8.7) The Post Office had to support itself – The Post office had to pay for its expenses out of its revenues after 1863. (The U.S. government finally did the same thing over 100 years later) This may not seem like such a big deal now, but keep in mind that at the time, the postal service was probably the largest federal department next to the military. So, reforming such a “huge” piece of government was a fairly important matter.
f. (1.9.9) Super-majority required for all spending bills – A two-thirds vote was required for the federal government to spend any money. The only exemptions that were allowed were monies spent on the day-to-day operating expenses of government, and for the payment of judicial claims against the federal government.
g. (1.9.10) All spending bills had to be rigidly defined – Any bill which appropriated money had to specify exactly how much was to be spent, and this amount was not allowed to fluctuate after the bill had been passed. (This would have prevented “entitlement” programs (such as Social Security), which do not have a fixed price tag)
3. Banned the use of “Riders” on bills. (1.9.20) All of the contents of a particular bill had to relate to the same subject, and that subject was to be expressed in the title of the bill. (This would keep, say, a “crime bill” from having legislation that related to, say, the importation of Swiss cheese.)
4. Term Limits (2.1.1) The president could only server one term in office, but his term would extend to 6 years.
5. Slavery Related:
a. (1.9.1 – 1.9.2) Prohibited the importation of Negroes.
b. (1.9.4, 4.2.1, [4.2.3 was reworded]) Protected the right of property in Negro Slaves.
c. (4.3.3) Protected the institution of slavery
http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/books/constitution-csa-xtra.html
The web site also contains the complete text.
February 9–Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stevens are elected President and Vic-President of the new Confederate States. Although Davis will be vilified in the South by the end of the war, at the time his election is almost universally popular. It marks a shift away from the more extreme Southern fire eaters like William Lowndes Yancy and Robert Rhett (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire-Eaters).
February 10–President Elect Davis is notified that he has been selected to be President of the new Southern Confederacy. This was a pose he did not seek. As a West Pointer he had hoped for a military appointment.