<Li> Area and population values do not include Missouri and Kentucky nor the Confederate Territory of Arizona . Water area: 5.7% . </Li> <Li> Slaves included in above population count (1860 Census). </Li> <P> The Confederate States of America (CSA or C.S.), commonly referred to as the Confederacy, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865 . The Confederacy was originally formed by seven secessionist slave - holding states--South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas--in the Lower South region of the United States, whose regional economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture, particularly cotton, and a plantation system that relied upon the labor of African - American slaves . </P> <P> Each state declared its secession from the United States following the November 1860 election of Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. presidency on a platform which opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories . Before Lincoln took office in March, a new Confederate government was established in February 1861, which was considered illegal by the government of the United States . States volunteered militia units and the new government hastened to form its own Confederate States Army from scratch practically overnight . After the American Civil War began in April, four slave states of the Upper South--Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina--also declared their secession and joined the Confederacy . The Confederacy later accepted Missouri and Kentucky as members, although neither officially declared secession nor were they ever largely controlled by Confederate forces; Confederate shadow governments attempted to control the two states but were later exiled from them . </P>

What was the south called before the civil war