When The United States Broke Into 2 Countries, Had 2 Presidents, 2 Flags

At dusk on Christmas day, 1991, the iconic hammer-and-sickle flag of the erstwhile Soviet Union lowered for the last time over the Kremlin in Moscow. USSR had dissolved into Russia and fourteen independent countries - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union, leaving Boris Yeltsin as President of Russia. Most people born in the 1980s and earlier remember that momentous day - when a communist superpower disintegrated.

But exactly 130 years before that,  in 1861, another superpower - the 'world's oldest democracy' - the United States of America - then only a union of 34 states, not 50 as it is today - had fallen apart, breaking into two countries - the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, leaving the US less than a quarter of the size we know it to be today. This is how it remained for nearly five years, during which there was an all-out war between the two countries. That war was known as the American Civil War.

Though the CSA had declared itself an independent nation with its own president, flag, capital city, and set in place its own government and administration, the US never accepted it as a separate country. And though it didn't attain global recognition in that era, several countries had started trading with it. British and French companies even sold ships and raw materials to the Confederacy, which declared itself an independent Republic.

Just over a decade earlier, in 1846, the American Union had gone to war with Mexico, known as the Mexican-American war. Till then, the states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Okhlahoma, and Kansas used to be part of Mexico - some in part, some in full. At the end of the over two-year war, Mexico suffered a catastrophic defeat, leading to it ceding all these states to the US in a declaration of defeat which is known as The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848. Mexico had to cede 55 per cent of its overall territory in exchange for $15 million from the United States.

But in 1861, the American Union fell apart. 11 southern states came together to break away and form the Confederate States of America. The new country had its own President - Jefferson Davis, who served from 1861 to 1865. He was from Mississippi. The 11 states that declared secession from the American Union were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. It set up its own government, cutting off completely from the US.

Jefferson Davis - First and only President of the Confederate States of America. (Photo Credit: senate.gov)

Though the increasing bitterness between the states of the north and those of the south was brewing for several years, the central issue that led to the fall of the United States was its policy on slavery. There were also divergent views on how the Constitution of the United States should be interpreted. Economic, political, and social factors also contributed to the divide.

Initially, six of the eleven states broke apart. Leaders and stakeholders from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana met in Montgomery, Alabama in February, 1861 to declare independence from the American Union, officially calling themselves the Confederate States of America or CSA - a new country, with Richmond, Virginia declared as its capital city. Texas broke away and joined them a month later. Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia joined CSA when the civil war broke out.

While the United States fought the war under the Stars and Stripes flag, also known as the Star-Spangled Banner, which at the time had only 34 stars representing the 34 states, the Confederate States of America fought the war under its own flag, called the Stars and Bars or the Southern Cross.

Flags of the USA (top-left) and CSA (bottom-left), and the Confederate Flag (right). (Photo Credit: iStock)

The secession was a response to the election win of Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate who vehemently opposed slavery and had pledged to abolish it, while these 11 Confederate States wanted to continue the practice of slavery.

Abraham Lincoln - 16th President of the United States of America (Photo Credit: whitehouse.gov)

At the end of the civil war, the United States defeated the Confederate States and took control of the 11 states which were lost, and with the Mexican states won in war a decade ago, the US became a 48-state nation, with Alaska, bought from Russia, and Hawaii becoming the last two states joining the United States much later. And though the Confederate States of America now only finding mention in history books and archived documents, its flag - the Confederate flag - which represents slavery and white supremacy - has resurfaced from time to time.