Jesse Cox, Tennessee Baptist Minister
In Montgomery, Alabama – capitol of the new Confederate States of America – delegates to the slaveholding states’ convention unanimously agree upon the provisional constitution for the Confederate government, drafted yesterday. In addition, they vote to elect Jefferson Davis, former U. S. Senator from Mississippi, as provisional president of the Confederate States of America; his inauguration is scheduled for February 18.
Slaveholder and Southern Baptist leader Basil Manly, Sr., chaplain of the convention, voices his approval to the provisional constitution. “It is substantially the Constitution of the United States, modified here and there so as to suit the Southern views of the rights of the states.” He also takes credit for the constitution officially invoking the favor of “Almighty God.”
Meanwhile, Tennessee remains badly divided over the issue of secession, even as governor Isham Harris calls a state vote on whether or not to send delegates to a State Convention that would decide on secession.
Baptists in the state are also split. Itinerant minister Jesse Cox (pictured) records in his diary:
“I walked one mile an voted against the state voting a convention to secede from the Union.”
The vote fails, although Tennessee would later become the last state to secede and join the Confederacy on June 8.
Sources: Basily Manly’s statement, see A James. Fuller, Chaplain to the Confederacy: Basily Manly and Baptist Life in the Old South (Louisiana State University Press, 2000), pp. 293-294.Jesse Cox story and photo.
