Although Pope Pius IX never signed an actual statement supporting the Confederacy, he responded to a letter written by Jefferson Davis on 23 September 1863 with a letter to Davis written 3 December 1863. Pius's "letter to Jefferson Davis was accompanied by an autographed picture of the pope" in which the Pope addressed the Confederate President as "the "Honorable President of the Confederate States of America".This simple courtesy, though it had no legal effect, has been seized upon by some to claim that it showed that the Pope recognized (at least on a personal level) the Confederate States of America to be an actual country (and separate from the United States).In fact, no diplomatic relations or recognitions were extended in either direction. But this letter caused Congress to, in 1867, explicitly ban diplomatic ties with the Vatican