This period of Confederate misfortunes gave the first verification of a fact which afterward had frequent illustration, that the resolution of the South, so indomitable in actual contest, staggered under the weight of reverses. The history of the war was a record of the variations of the Southern mind between extreme elation and immoderate depression. Extravagant exultation over success, and immoderate despondency over disaster, usually followed each other in prompt succession. Overestimating, in many instances, the importance of its own victories, the South quite as frequently exaggerated the value of those won by the enemy. There was thus a constant departure from the middle ground of dispassionate judgment, which would have accurately measured the real situation; making available its opportunities, by a vigorous prosecution of advantage, and overcoming difficulties by energetic preparation. But this despondency happily gave place to renewed determination, as the success of the enemy brought him nearer the homes of the South, and made more imminent the evils of subjugation. A grand and noble popular reanimation was the response to the renewed vigor and resolution of the Government. When the Confederate Government was organized at Montgomery, the operation of the provisional constitution was limited to the period of one year, to be superseded by the permanent government. No material alteration of the political organism was found necessary, nor was there any change in the _personnel_ of the administration--Mr. Davis having been unanimously chosen President at the election in November, and retaining his administration as it existed at the close of the functions of the provisional constitution. Though the change was thus merely nominal, the occasion was replete with historic interest to the people whose liberties were involved in the fate of the government, now declared "permanent." It was, indeed, an assumption of a new character--a declaration, with renewed emphasis, of the high and peerless enterprise of independent national existence; an introduction to a future, promising a speedy fulfillment of inestimable blessings or "woes unnumbered." On the 18th of February, 1862, the first Congress, under the permanent constitution of the Confederate States, assembled in the capitol at Richmond. On the 22d occurred the ceremony of the inauguration of President Davis.