Congress of States: Proceedings of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America ed. by R. David Carlson (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Congress of States: Proceedings of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America ed. by R. David Carlson
• Ben H. Severance

Congress of States: Proceedings of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America. Edited by R. David Carlson. (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2023. Pp. xxii, 354. Paper, $34.95, ISBN 978-0-8173-6091-7; cloth, $115.00, ISBN 978-0-8173-2165-9.)

Legislative minutes are an invaluable primary source when studying the political life of a country. They often make for monotonous reading, however, even when they pertain to a government just forming at the outset of a war. Such is the case with the Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, 1861–1895 (1904–1905), seven volumes that mostly record various motions, appointments, and roll call votes while leaving out the speeches, debates, and petitions that instill the statistical data with vibrancy and interest. To augment this information, historians have long consulted the “Proceedings of the Confederate Congress,” a supplement of nine volumes compiled by Douglas S. Freeman and published through the Southern Historical Society Papers (1923–1959). This supplement incorporates newspaper coverage that presents the detail missing from the journals themselves. Unfortunately, Freeman produced “Proceedings” only for the first and second congresses of the Confederacy; the Provisional Congress, which presided over the first year of the Civil War, was neglected. Enter R. David Carlson, who rectifies this oversight with Congress of States: Proceedings of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, a book that both emulates and improves upon Freeman’s approach to the other volumes in the collection.

Congress of States is essentially a documentary editing project that supplements the Journal minutes for the Provisional Congress in two significant ways. First, like Freeman, Carlson weaves in the reports of newspaper correspondents who daily attended the sessions. But whereas Freeman used only the Richmond, Virginia, press, Carlson draws on newspapers from many of the South’s other big cities, too, particularly Charleston, South Carolina; Montgomery, Alabama; and New Orleans, Louisiana. The result is coverage that better reflects the national outlook of the Confederate Congress as opposed to just what Virginia’s journalists chose to address. Second, unlike Freeman’s “Proceedings,” Carlson has fully annotated his own work. Every person mentioned and every event discussed receives detailed explanations in the endnotes. Combined with its extensive index, Congress of States greatly facilitates research into the subject matter. [End Page 622]

In addition to making the Provisional Congress more accessible to scholars, Carlson also strives to elevate the importance of this body, which is too often seen as mostly ceremonial in comparison to the succeeding congresses that implemented the Confederacy’s principal war measures, such as conscription and impressment. As Carlson points out, the Provisional Congress not only passed its share of legislation, but through its parliamentary decorum, it also helped legitimate southern independence at a time when anxiety over both secession and an incipient war with the North was still palpable. This is perhaps best illustrated by the dozens of petitions submitted to Congress by citizens from all across the South urging lawmakers to create a national flag. Carlson rightly notes that a flag is a powerful symbol of the people’s passion for a cause. These petitions, which include verbatim descriptions of each flag design and the rationale behind the artwork, are not to be found in the original Journal, but they can be accessed in Carlson’s book.

Congress of States may not break new ground in the scholarly understanding of Confederate politics, but that is not really the author’s intent. Instead, Carlson has produced an attractive and easily navigated reference source on an institution that was central to the Confederate war effort. His contribution to the literature will undoubtedly help future historians develop new assessments of the Confederacy during the early days of the Civil War.

Ben H. Severance Auburn University at Montgomery Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association ...