Confederate States (Cherry, Plum, and Chrysanthemum)

The Confederate States of America is a federal republic situated in the northern part of American continent. It is commonly called the Confederate States (C.S. or C.S.A.). The country consisted of eight contiguous states and one territory which bordered with the United States of America to the north and northwest and Mexico to the south and southwest.

History
European colonization in Northern America began around 1600 and came mostly from England. The majority of early English settlers were indentured servants, who gained freedom after enough work to pay off their passage. The Spanish and French established colonies in Florida, Texas, and Louisiana. The Spanish colonized Florida in the 16th century, with their communities reaching a peak in the late 17th century.

With Virginia in the lead, the Southern colonies embraced the American Revolution, providing such leaders as commander in chief and future first President of the United States, George Washington, and the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson. On July 4, 1776, delegates from thirteen British colonies, including Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, unanimously issued the Declaration of Independence, which established the United States of America.

The Revolution provided a shock to slavery in the Southern states. Thousands of slaves took advantage of wartime disruption to find their own freedom. However, Southern leaders were able to protect their sectional interests during the Constitutional Convention of 1787, preventing the insertion of any explicit anti-slavery position in the U.S. Constitution.

In 19th century, the attitudes toward slavery were shifting; all states outlawed the international slave trade, and the federal government criminalized the import or export of slaves in 1807. All the Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804. With cotton a highly profitable plantation crop after 1820, Southern whites defended slavery as a positive good for everyone, including the slaves.

The United States purchased the Territory of Lousiana from France in 1803 and militarily annexed Florida and other Gulf Coast territory from Spain in 1819 which doubled the size of the country. The 1846 Texas Treaty with Mexico led to U.S. control of the present-day U.S. state of California, C.S. state of Texas and C.S. territory of Arizona. The treaty of 1846 was alarmed many Northerners by adding new territory on the Southern side of the free-slave boundary and the slavery-in-the-territories issue heated up dramatically.

By 1860, tensions between slave and free states mounted with arguments about the relationship between the state and federal governments, as well as violent conflicts over the spread of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. As result, seven slave states declared their secession and established the Confederate States of America.

With the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the War of Southern Secession (1861-1864) began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. The Secession War reached its stalemate in 1863 and after received the pressures from Radical Republicans and the abolitionists, the United States recognized the independence of the Confederate States in August 1, 1864.

Devastated by the Secession War, the economy of the newly independent country was supported by the cotton trade with the British and the French. Plantation became the country's main source of income and when the cotton price decreased, the C.S. suffered a period of economic stagnation. The Confederate States was the one of countries that badly hit by the Panic of 1873. Most states deep in debt, burdened with heavy taxes and, at worst, even went into the bankruptcy.

The Democratic Party quickly fell out of favor and new party system emerged under pro-planters White supremacist Patriotic Party. The Patriotic took a hard-line against abolition and defended the slavery in every terms which resulted the abolition only could endured in early 20th century, after the Democratic Party adopted the "separate but equal" policy regarding the African-descended citizens, including newly freed slaves on 1920.