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A Short History of the Confederate States of America
“… the war, on the part of the Government of the United States, was a war of aggression and usurpation; and on the part of the South was for the defence of an inherent and unalienable right…”/ The Civil War was one of the most defining eras in the history of the United States of America. The conflict developed as a result of complicated and intertwined political, economic, and social circumstances. This period in American history tends to be told from the view of the victors — how the Union, following the lead of President Abraham Lincoln, reclaimed those states attempting to secede and brought them back into the fold. Far less often is the conflict depicted by the vanquished. Written by Jefferson Davis, who served as the Confederate States’ president during the entirety of its existence, A Short History of the Confederate States of America tells the story of the secession of the southern states from the Union. The tale begins with the circumstances leading to secession, through the Civil War and on to the surrender of the Southern armies and the capture of President Davis. Davis sets out a case for establishing the constitutional right of secession and the violation of such rights by the government of the United States of America. The Union’s unwillingness to acknowledge such constitutional infringement and rectify the matter resulted, Davis explains, in secession proving to be the only viable course of action for southern, slave-holding states who sought to protect themselves. Published in 1890, twenty-five years after the end of the Civil War, Davis’s account reveals a version of the events of the Civil War that is rarely seen. Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was born in Kentucky, and is best known for serving as the President of the Confederate States of America between 1862 and 1865. Prior to the secession of the South, he held positions as a US Representative and Senator and as the 23rd US Secretary of War. He was captured at the end of the Civil War, indicted for treason, and imprisoned for two years, but was released without trial. In 1881 he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, followed by A Short History of the Confederate States of America in 1890. He died a few months after the book’s completion of acute bronchitis complicated by malaria.
497 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1890
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About the author
Jefferson Davis
246 books19 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American military officer, statesman, and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865.
A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. Senator representing the state of Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.
Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861, after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed President of the Confederate States of America and was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the more industrially developed Union, even though the south only lost roughly one soldier for every two union soldiers on the battlefield.
After Davis was captured May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was posthumously removed by order of Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee.
Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American military officer, statesman, and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865.
A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. Senator representing the state of Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.
Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861, after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed President of the Confederate States of America and was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the more industrially developed Union, even though the south only lost roughly one soldier for every two union soldiers on the battlefield.
After Davis was captured May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was posthumously removed by order of Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee.
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March 18, 2021
In a TV interview, novelist Shelby Foote said, “the kind of country we are emerged from the American Civil War…It truly is the outstanding event in American history insofar as making us what we are….It defined us. It said what we’re gonna be, and it said what we’re not gonna be.” Before the War, the United States of America were truly that—a collection of states, a collection of free and independent nation states. After the Civil War, there was just one nation called the United States, a collection of provinces of one large continent-spanning polity. The federal government was from that point on, the government of the American people.
When I attended Georgia Tech, Professor Gaston, my American history professor, only half-jokingly referred to the conflict as “the War of Yankee Aggression,” but he was completely serious when he taught the South had the Constitutional right to secede. In fact, the statement of the right to self-determination preceded even the Constitution, going back to the Declaration of Independence itself. Thus, the South was most emphatically not in “rebellion” but were exercising their legal right to secede, and the North’s efforts to coerce the South to remain in the Union were illegal and against the principals Americans were supposed to hold most dear. Thus, at the time of the war, Southerners referred to the conflict as the Southern War of Independence.
All this came back to mind when I read A Short History of the Confederate States of America, by Confederacy president Jefferson Davis. The first quarter of the book details Davis’ arguments for the legality of what the Southern states were attempting, and the complete illegality—the complete disregard of the Declaration of Independence, the original Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, and U.S. case law—of Northern politicians and President Lincoln’s actions. When I began reading Jefferson’s history, I at first grew a little impatient with the length Jefferson gives to his arguments, but then I realized I’d read many accounts of the battles of the Civil War, but had never read a Southerner’s justification for the war in such detail, and in such well-laid out, step-by-step reasoning.
When Jefferson finally begins chronicling the events of the war, I noticed this was unlike most accounts. First of all, it was from a unique viewpoint, from the one-and-only Confederate president and commander-in-chief, and included discussion of political, diplomatic, and economic matters as well as military actions. I was also struck by how much “honor” mattered to Davis, to the point of decrying the lack of honor on the part of the Federal war effort. The American Civil War is often said to be the first modern war in which the only thing that matters is ultimate victory—Lincoln (and his generals such as Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan) understood this perfectly, but Davis apparently did not. Or if he did, he was reluctant to embrace it.
Lest this review sound too glowing about Jefferson Davis, I also noticed the pages of his account are overflowing with accounts of Northern barbarity, to the point of hysterical—or at least hyperbolic—overstatement (the actions of the Federal troops and their commanders are said to be totally beyond the ken of civilized men, surpassing the atrocities committed by Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan). But he is noticeably silent on similar Southern actions. For example, in his account of the fall of Fort Pillow, he completely ignores Nathan Bedford Forrest’s massacre of black Federal troops after they surrendered, and he places the blame for the treatment of Federal prisoners at Andersonville on the shoulders of Northern leaders. And then there’s the elephant in Davis’ parlor, the whole issue of slavery, of which Davis writes as strictly a matter of property rights, not the rights of subjugated human beings who ought to be free.
Another quirky aspect of Davis’ viewpoint is his way of playing up each Confederate victory (of which there were of course many), and downplaying Union ones. In his descriptions, each Southern victory is the natural result of Southern manhood and excellence of character, and each Northern victory is only due to overwhelming superiority of numbers and/or conditions disadvantageous to the South over which the Southern commanders had no control. (The image which irresistibly came to my mind was that the Confederates were the noble, honorable Men and Elves fighting the despicable, evil, seemingly endless hordes of Orcs.) After reading accounts of so many battles from this viewpoint, I marveled that the North ever triumphed at all.
But flawed and subjective as Davis’ account is, that is precisely what I found fascinating about A Short History of the Confederate States of America. For any serious student of the American Civil War (or, as it was once referred in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, “the recent unpleasantness between the States"), this should be required reading. It also would be of benefit to current “social justice warriors” who cannot abide any opinions which differ from their own, judging such opinions evil, and who want to tear down monuments to Confederate leaders such as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee (who was not fighting to preserve slavery, but was fighting to repel invaders and despoilers of his native Virginia). If such SJWs would read Davis’ account with an open mind (which is difficult for me to imagine), he or she might see how a differing opinion—even one that ultimately supports an institution such as chattel slavery—can still be honorable and not evil. I’ll end this review as I started it, with another quote from Shelby Foote, who said, “There’s a great compromise [in this country]…It consists of Southerners admitting—freely—that it’s probably best that the Union wasn’t divided, and the North admits, rather freely, that the South fought for a cause in which it believed.”
When I attended Georgia Tech, Professor Gaston, my American history professor, only half-jokingly referred to the conflict as “the War of Yankee Aggression,” but he was completely serious when he taught the South had the Constitutional right to secede. In fact, the statement of the right to self-determination preceded even the Constitution, going back to the Declaration of Independence itself. Thus, the South was most emphatically not in “rebellion” but were exercising their legal right to secede, and the North’s efforts to coerce the South to remain in the Union were illegal and against the principals Americans were supposed to hold most dear. Thus, at the time of the war, Southerners referred to the conflict as the Southern War of Independence.
All this came back to mind when I read A Short History of the Confederate States of America, by Confederacy president Jefferson Davis. The first quarter of the book details Davis’ arguments for the legality of what the Southern states were attempting, and the complete illegality—the complete disregard of the Declaration of Independence, the original Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, and U.S. case law—of Northern politicians and President Lincoln’s actions. When I began reading Jefferson’s history, I at first grew a little impatient with the length Jefferson gives to his arguments, but then I realized I’d read many accounts of the battles of the Civil War, but had never read a Southerner’s justification for the war in such detail, and in such well-laid out, step-by-step reasoning.
When Jefferson finally begins chronicling the events of the war, I noticed this was unlike most accounts. First of all, it was from a unique viewpoint, from the one-and-only Confederate president and commander-in-chief, and included discussion of political, diplomatic, and economic matters as well as military actions. I was also struck by how much “honor” mattered to Davis, to the point of decrying the lack of honor on the part of the Federal war effort. The American Civil War is often said to be the first modern war in which the only thing that matters is ultimate victory—Lincoln (and his generals such as Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan) understood this perfectly, but Davis apparently did not. Or if he did, he was reluctant to embrace it.
Lest this review sound too glowing about Jefferson Davis, I also noticed the pages of his account are overflowing with accounts of Northern barbarity, to the point of hysterical—or at least hyperbolic—overstatement (the actions of the Federal troops and their commanders are said to be totally beyond the ken of civilized men, surpassing the atrocities committed by Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan). But he is noticeably silent on similar Southern actions. For example, in his account of the fall of Fort Pillow, he completely ignores Nathan Bedford Forrest’s massacre of black Federal troops after they surrendered, and he places the blame for the treatment of Federal prisoners at Andersonville on the shoulders of Northern leaders. And then there’s the elephant in Davis’ parlor, the whole issue of slavery, of which Davis writes as strictly a matter of property rights, not the rights of subjugated human beings who ought to be free.
Another quirky aspect of Davis’ viewpoint is his way of playing up each Confederate victory (of which there were of course many), and downplaying Union ones. In his descriptions, each Southern victory is the natural result of Southern manhood and excellence of character, and each Northern victory is only due to overwhelming superiority of numbers and/or conditions disadvantageous to the South over which the Southern commanders had no control. (The image which irresistibly came to my mind was that the Confederates were the noble, honorable Men and Elves fighting the despicable, evil, seemingly endless hordes of Orcs.) After reading accounts of so many battles from this viewpoint, I marveled that the North ever triumphed at all.
But flawed and subjective as Davis’ account is, that is precisely what I found fascinating about A Short History of the Confederate States of America. For any serious student of the American Civil War (or, as it was once referred in the Atlanta Constitution newspaper, “the recent unpleasantness between the States"), this should be required reading. It also would be of benefit to current “social justice warriors” who cannot abide any opinions which differ from their own, judging such opinions evil, and who want to tear down monuments to Confederate leaders such as Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee (who was not fighting to preserve slavery, but was fighting to repel invaders and despoilers of his native Virginia). If such SJWs would read Davis’ account with an open mind (which is difficult for me to imagine), he or she might see how a differing opinion—even one that ultimately supports an institution such as chattel slavery—can still be honorable and not evil. I’ll end this review as I started it, with another quote from Shelby Foote, who said, “There’s a great compromise [in this country]…It consists of Southerners admitting—freely—that it’s probably best that the Union wasn’t divided, and the North admits, rather freely, that the South fought for a cause in which it believed.”
January 12, 2021
This is a solid, if not spectacular book by one of the conflicts best know protagonists. Not a detailed book on the military campaigns, but you can find that elsewhere. Davis attention to detail on issues one might not ordinarily think of, supply, armaments manufacturing, the economy, etc are worth the read. Historians accuse him of being a micromanager and you can see this tendency as he writes. Davis feuded with several of his key generals during the war, but I'm glad to see he took the high road in writing about them. All in all a decent primary source and much more readable than his larger "The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government."
July 20, 2024
Historically interesting
… but clearly trying to justify his place in history. The guy was a slaver, who promoted states rights as justification….
… the difficulty is that he is right in that, at the time, there was nothing saying secession was impossible. He was immoral, yes, but illegal?
But, regardless. Screw Davis!
… but clearly trying to justify his place in history. The guy was a slaver, who promoted states rights as justification….
… the difficulty is that he is right in that, at the time, there was nothing saying secession was impossible. He was immoral, yes, but illegal?
But, regardless. Screw Davis!
May 12, 2024
THE CONFEDERACY PRESIDENT RECOUNTS ‘THE WAR BETWEEN THE STATES”
Jefferson Finis Davis (1808-1889) was the president of the Confederate States during the Civil War, and previously had represented Mississippi in the Senate and House of Representatives.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1881 book, “The vindication of the Southern States for their Ordinances of Secession in 1861 involves two considerations, namely: their rightful power to withdraw from the Union into which they had entered by voluntary compact; and the causes that justified the exercise of that power. In treating this question in its twofold aspect, the legal and the moral, it is not intended to vex the weary ear by adducing time-worn arguments; but, believing the case to be one which must be adjusted finally by historical facts, the candid reader is asked, without favor or prejudice, to make a decision on the unquestionable record.” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “If it be asked how could nine States consistently secede from the ‘Confederation and Perpetual Union’ of which they were a component part… it is submitted… that the States… had never surrendered their Sovereignty, and, by virtue of it, if the Government failed to fulfill the end for which it was established, they had the unalienable right to ‘alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them should seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.’” (Pg. 10-11)
He argues, “The existence of African servitude gave rise to acrimonious political discussions long before the secession of the Southern States in 1861… It is important, therefore… to show … that the contest had no just explication whatever to the essential merits of freedom and slavery… that they were simply political struggles between sections with diverse institutions and conflicting interests. At the time of the adoption of the Articles of Confederation… slavery existed in all the States… The slaves, however, were comparatively numerous in the Southern and few in the Northern States… Slave labor was profitable in the South and unprofitable in the North…
“The Constitution forbade any Federal interference with the slave-trade prior to 1808… In 1807… the earliest moment at which the constitutional restriction ceased to be operative, Congress… by a vote of 113 yeas to 5 nays---passed an act prohibiting the future importation. The slave-trade was thus finally abolished, and has never since had any legal existence in any of the States. The question of the maintenance or extinction of the system of negro slavery in any State was one exclusively belonging to each State… A few zealots in the North afterward … [made] demands for the abolition of slavery within the States by Federal intervention… The dominant purpose, however… was sectional aggrandizement looking to absolute control. Theirs, therefore, is the responsibility for the war that resulted.” (Pg. 17)
He continues, “No charge was more unjust… than the accusation that the South sought the ‘extension of slavery’ when it insisted on equal rights in the Territories. The question was merely whether the slave-holder should be permitted to go with his slaves into territory… into which the non-slave-holder could go with HIS property of any sort. It was simply a question of the dispersion of slaves rather than of the ‘extension of slavery,’ Removal is not extension.” (Pg. 18) He summarizes, “the conflicts between South and North involved no ethical question as to slavery; that they were essentially struggles for sectional equality on the one side, and for sectional ascendancy on the other… It does not follow that either party to this contest was wholly right or wholly wrong. The determination of the question of right or wrong must be left to the candid inquirer after examination of the evidence.” (Pg. 21)
He states, “The indignation with which the result of the [1860] Presidential election [of Lincoln] was received in the Southern States proceeded from no personal hostility to the President-elect, nor from chagrin at the defeat of the Democratic candidates, but from the fact that the people of the South recognized in Mr. Lincoln the representative of a party professing principles destructive to ‘their peace, their prosperity, and their domestic tranquility.’” (Pg. 32)
He asserts, “To whatever extent the question of slavery may have served as an occasion, it was far from being the cause of the war… Owing to climatic, industrial, and economical---nor moral or sentimental---reasons, it had gradually disappeared in the Northern States, while it had persisted in the Southern States… the sectional hostility which first appeared… in the Missouri controversy… was not the consequence of any differences on the abstract question of slavery. It was the offspring of sectional rivalry and political ambition… It was not slavery that threatened a rupture in 1832, but an unjust and unequal tariff… the existence of African servitude was in nowise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident of it. In the later controversies, however, its effect as a lever in operating on the passions, prejudices, and sympathies of men was so potent that it has darkened the whole horizon of historic truth. I … shall not permit myself to be drawn into any discussion of the merits or demerits of slavery as an ethical or even as a political question. Such discussion would only serve to divert attention from the genuine issue involved… it was… the systematic and persistent struggle to deprive the Southern States of equality in the Union, and generally to discriminate against the interests of their people, culminating in their exclusion from the Territories…” (Pg. 36-37)
Citing the Dred Scott case, he states, “the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in so far as it prohibited the existence of African servitude north of a designated line, was unconstitutional and void. Instead of accepting the decision… it was flouted, denounced, and utterly disregarded by the Northern agitators… What resource for justice, what assurance of tranquility… now remained for the South? No alternative remained except to see, out of the Union, that security which they had vainly endeavored to obtain within it. The hope of our people… was to escape from injury and strife within the Union; to find prosperity and peace out of it.” (Pg. 38) He adds, “One week after the inauguration of the Federal President at Washington, the Confederate congress … completed the permanent Constitution, which was forthwith submitted to the people of the respective States and duly ratified by them.” (Pg. 54)
He defends the Southern firing on Fort Sumpter: “A naval expedition for the relief of Fort Sumpter was sent out from New York… Yet the Confederate Commissioners were … under the assurance that due notice would be given of any military movement… It was evident that no confidence could be placed in any pledge or promise of the Federal Government… The forbearance and the Confederate Government … [is] unexampled in history. It was carried to the verge of disregard of the safety of the people … To have waited further strengthening of the enemy by land and vessel forces… for the sake of having them ‘fire the first gun,’ would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down an assailant who levels a deadly weapon at one’s heart until he has actually fired. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he who strikes the first blow or fires the first gun.” (Pg. 56)
He acknowledges, “It soon became evident to all that the South had gone to war without counting the cost. Our chief difficulty was the want of arms and munitions of war… The resources on which our people had relied---the private arms in the hands of citizens---had proved a sad delusion, and the Confederacy was not only deficient in ammunition but in the material for making it.” (Pg. 83) Much of the remainder of the book is devoted to tales of the war itself.
He adds, “At the beginning of 1862 it became evident that it was the purpose of the United States Government to assail us in every manner… and with every engine of destruction. While the Executive was preparing immense armies, iron-clad fleets, and huge instruments of war with which to invade or territory and destroy our citizens… [Congress] brought forward the doctrine that the Government of the United States… could … resort to any measure which a case of self-defense could justify.” (Pg. 130) Gettysburg “may be regarded as the most eventful struggle of the war. By it the drooping spirit of the North was revived… On the other hand, a drawn battle… impaired the confidence of the Southern people…” (Pg. 214)
Ultimately, “That the purpose of the Government of the United States was to subjugate the Southern States and the Southern people, under the pretext of a restoration of the Union, is established by the terms and conditions offered us in all the conferences relating to a settlement of differences… If we would break up our Government, dissolve the Confederacy, disband our armies, emancipate the slaves, and take an oath of allegiance to it, the Government of the United States would pardon us, and not deprive us of anything more than the property already stolen from us, and such slaves as still remained.” (Pg. 272) Later, he adds, “A leader less resolute than General Lee, an army less heroically resisting fatigue… and starvation, would long since have reached the conclusion that surrender was a necessity… the proud, cheerful spirit of the army and its leader had resisted the extremes of privation and danger, and never sank until confronted by surrender.” (Pg. 287)
As the Union troops began closing in on Davis, “my wife… implored me to leave her at once. I hesitated… before yielding to her importunity… As it was quite dark in the tent, I picked up what was supposed to be … a water-proof light overcoat without sleeves; it was subsequently found to be my wife’s, so very like my own as to be mistaken for it… [Union] Colonel Pritchard… claimed credit … for the forbearance shown by his men in not shooting me when I refused to surrender… Bitter tears have been shed… on account of the needless torture to which I was subjected… But I do not propose here to enter upon the story or my imprisonment…” (Pg. 294-295)
He concludes, “the people of the late Confederate States were disenfranchised… the negro population was invested with the right to vote, whereby governments were established… which were officered exclusively by blacks and by aliens elected to power by negro votes---governments whose sole purpose seemed to be to plunder and oppress the people… But it would require a separate volume to narrate the oppressions inflicted on the people of the South after the cessation of hostilities… My object in this work has been to prove by historical authority that each of the States, as sovereign parties to the compact of Union, had the reserved power to secede from it whenever it was found not to answer the ends for which it was established… it follows that the war… was a war of aggression and usurpation; and on the part of the South was for the defense of an inherent and unalienable right… I recognize the fact that the war showed [secession] to be impracticable; but this did not prove it to be wrong…” (Pg. 298-299)
I found Davis’s arguments in favor the South quite unpersuasive, and am vastly pleased that the South lost the Civil War (which, despite his protestations, the South began) and that slavery was ended. Still, it WAS interesting to read his perspective on these events.
Jefferson Finis Davis (1808-1889) was the president of the Confederate States during the Civil War, and previously had represented Mississippi in the Senate and House of Representatives.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1881 book, “The vindication of the Southern States for their Ordinances of Secession in 1861 involves two considerations, namely: their rightful power to withdraw from the Union into which they had entered by voluntary compact; and the causes that justified the exercise of that power. In treating this question in its twofold aspect, the legal and the moral, it is not intended to vex the weary ear by adducing time-worn arguments; but, believing the case to be one which must be adjusted finally by historical facts, the candid reader is asked, without favor or prejudice, to make a decision on the unquestionable record.” (Pg. 9)
He continues, “If it be asked how could nine States consistently secede from the ‘Confederation and Perpetual Union’ of which they were a component part… it is submitted… that the States… had never surrendered their Sovereignty, and, by virtue of it, if the Government failed to fulfill the end for which it was established, they had the unalienable right to ‘alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them should seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.’” (Pg. 10-11)
He argues, “The existence of African servitude gave rise to acrimonious political discussions long before the secession of the Southern States in 1861… It is important, therefore… to show … that the contest had no just explication whatever to the essential merits of freedom and slavery… that they were simply political struggles between sections with diverse institutions and conflicting interests. At the time of the adoption of the Articles of Confederation… slavery existed in all the States… The slaves, however, were comparatively numerous in the Southern and few in the Northern States… Slave labor was profitable in the South and unprofitable in the North…
“The Constitution forbade any Federal interference with the slave-trade prior to 1808… In 1807… the earliest moment at which the constitutional restriction ceased to be operative, Congress… by a vote of 113 yeas to 5 nays---passed an act prohibiting the future importation. The slave-trade was thus finally abolished, and has never since had any legal existence in any of the States. The question of the maintenance or extinction of the system of negro slavery in any State was one exclusively belonging to each State… A few zealots in the North afterward … [made] demands for the abolition of slavery within the States by Federal intervention… The dominant purpose, however… was sectional aggrandizement looking to absolute control. Theirs, therefore, is the responsibility for the war that resulted.” (Pg. 17)
He continues, “No charge was more unjust… than the accusation that the South sought the ‘extension of slavery’ when it insisted on equal rights in the Territories. The question was merely whether the slave-holder should be permitted to go with his slaves into territory… into which the non-slave-holder could go with HIS property of any sort. It was simply a question of the dispersion of slaves rather than of the ‘extension of slavery,’ Removal is not extension.” (Pg. 18) He summarizes, “the conflicts between South and North involved no ethical question as to slavery; that they were essentially struggles for sectional equality on the one side, and for sectional ascendancy on the other… It does not follow that either party to this contest was wholly right or wholly wrong. The determination of the question of right or wrong must be left to the candid inquirer after examination of the evidence.” (Pg. 21)
He states, “The indignation with which the result of the [1860] Presidential election [of Lincoln] was received in the Southern States proceeded from no personal hostility to the President-elect, nor from chagrin at the defeat of the Democratic candidates, but from the fact that the people of the South recognized in Mr. Lincoln the representative of a party professing principles destructive to ‘their peace, their prosperity, and their domestic tranquility.’” (Pg. 32)
He asserts, “To whatever extent the question of slavery may have served as an occasion, it was far from being the cause of the war… Owing to climatic, industrial, and economical---nor moral or sentimental---reasons, it had gradually disappeared in the Northern States, while it had persisted in the Southern States… the sectional hostility which first appeared… in the Missouri controversy… was not the consequence of any differences on the abstract question of slavery. It was the offspring of sectional rivalry and political ambition… It was not slavery that threatened a rupture in 1832, but an unjust and unequal tariff… the existence of African servitude was in nowise the cause of the conflict, but only an incident of it. In the later controversies, however, its effect as a lever in operating on the passions, prejudices, and sympathies of men was so potent that it has darkened the whole horizon of historic truth. I … shall not permit myself to be drawn into any discussion of the merits or demerits of slavery as an ethical or even as a political question. Such discussion would only serve to divert attention from the genuine issue involved… it was… the systematic and persistent struggle to deprive the Southern States of equality in the Union, and generally to discriminate against the interests of their people, culminating in their exclusion from the Territories…” (Pg. 36-37)
Citing the Dred Scott case, he states, “the Missouri Compromise of 1820, in so far as it prohibited the existence of African servitude north of a designated line, was unconstitutional and void. Instead of accepting the decision… it was flouted, denounced, and utterly disregarded by the Northern agitators… What resource for justice, what assurance of tranquility… now remained for the South? No alternative remained except to see, out of the Union, that security which they had vainly endeavored to obtain within it. The hope of our people… was to escape from injury and strife within the Union; to find prosperity and peace out of it.” (Pg. 38) He adds, “One week after the inauguration of the Federal President at Washington, the Confederate congress … completed the permanent Constitution, which was forthwith submitted to the people of the respective States and duly ratified by them.” (Pg. 54)
He defends the Southern firing on Fort Sumpter: “A naval expedition for the relief of Fort Sumpter was sent out from New York… Yet the Confederate Commissioners were … under the assurance that due notice would be given of any military movement… It was evident that no confidence could be placed in any pledge or promise of the Federal Government… The forbearance and the Confederate Government … [is] unexampled in history. It was carried to the verge of disregard of the safety of the people … To have waited further strengthening of the enemy by land and vessel forces… for the sake of having them ‘fire the first gun,’ would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down an assailant who levels a deadly weapon at one’s heart until he has actually fired. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he who strikes the first blow or fires the first gun.” (Pg. 56)
He acknowledges, “It soon became evident to all that the South had gone to war without counting the cost. Our chief difficulty was the want of arms and munitions of war… The resources on which our people had relied---the private arms in the hands of citizens---had proved a sad delusion, and the Confederacy was not only deficient in ammunition but in the material for making it.” (Pg. 83) Much of the remainder of the book is devoted to tales of the war itself.
He adds, “At the beginning of 1862 it became evident that it was the purpose of the United States Government to assail us in every manner… and with every engine of destruction. While the Executive was preparing immense armies, iron-clad fleets, and huge instruments of war with which to invade or territory and destroy our citizens… [Congress] brought forward the doctrine that the Government of the United States… could … resort to any measure which a case of self-defense could justify.” (Pg. 130) Gettysburg “may be regarded as the most eventful struggle of the war. By it the drooping spirit of the North was revived… On the other hand, a drawn battle… impaired the confidence of the Southern people…” (Pg. 214)
Ultimately, “That the purpose of the Government of the United States was to subjugate the Southern States and the Southern people, under the pretext of a restoration of the Union, is established by the terms and conditions offered us in all the conferences relating to a settlement of differences… If we would break up our Government, dissolve the Confederacy, disband our armies, emancipate the slaves, and take an oath of allegiance to it, the Government of the United States would pardon us, and not deprive us of anything more than the property already stolen from us, and such slaves as still remained.” (Pg. 272) Later, he adds, “A leader less resolute than General Lee, an army less heroically resisting fatigue… and starvation, would long since have reached the conclusion that surrender was a necessity… the proud, cheerful spirit of the army and its leader had resisted the extremes of privation and danger, and never sank until confronted by surrender.” (Pg. 287)
As the Union troops began closing in on Davis, “my wife… implored me to leave her at once. I hesitated… before yielding to her importunity… As it was quite dark in the tent, I picked up what was supposed to be … a water-proof light overcoat without sleeves; it was subsequently found to be my wife’s, so very like my own as to be mistaken for it… [Union] Colonel Pritchard… claimed credit … for the forbearance shown by his men in not shooting me when I refused to surrender… Bitter tears have been shed… on account of the needless torture to which I was subjected… But I do not propose here to enter upon the story or my imprisonment…” (Pg. 294-295)
He concludes, “the people of the late Confederate States were disenfranchised… the negro population was invested with the right to vote, whereby governments were established… which were officered exclusively by blacks and by aliens elected to power by negro votes---governments whose sole purpose seemed to be to plunder and oppress the people… But it would require a separate volume to narrate the oppressions inflicted on the people of the South after the cessation of hostilities… My object in this work has been to prove by historical authority that each of the States, as sovereign parties to the compact of Union, had the reserved power to secede from it whenever it was found not to answer the ends for which it was established… it follows that the war… was a war of aggression and usurpation; and on the part of the South was for the defense of an inherent and unalienable right… I recognize the fact that the war showed [secession] to be impracticable; but this did not prove it to be wrong…” (Pg. 298-299)
I found Davis’s arguments in favor the South quite unpersuasive, and am vastly pleased that the South lost the Civil War (which, despite his protestations, the South began) and that slavery was ended. Still, it WAS interesting to read his perspective on these events.
December 21, 2021
After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis spent two years in prison without trial. He was released on bail and a year and a half later, the government finally dropped the treason charges against him. In 1877 he retired to Beauvoir, where he wrote, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. This was a two-volume tome of over 1,500 pages. I did not read this book. I tried, but I kept following asleep. Luckily, ten years later, Davis wrote A Short History of the Confederate States of America. Roughly one-third in length, “A Short History” covers the same ground and is more readable.
Davis writing style is clear for modern readers, but I would recommend a good understanding of the war to provide context for his narrative. That said, for a thorough understanding of a major historical event, it always best to get the story from the horse’s mouth. The Davis perspective may be biased, but those perspectives did not change between the war and the writing of his memoir. That consistency makes this book valuable for understanding the motivations for war.
Davis extols victories and offers strained excuses for errors and failures. In Davis’ mind, nothing was his fault, the Confederacy was always honorable, the Union always vile. For those not imbued with The Cause mythology, this heavy-handed prejudice can be off-putting, but I found it helps understand the ethos of the period.
Most history books are written by winners. If you don’t study the losers, then you have an incomplete picture. An example would be the hallowed Federalist Papers. There is a collection of opposition opinion pieces called the Anti-Federalist Papers. I suggest reading both and I highly recommend Jefferson Davis’ A Short History of the Confederate States of America.
(This is a research book for Maelstrom, a sequel to Tempest at Dawn.)
Davis writing style is clear for modern readers, but I would recommend a good understanding of the war to provide context for his narrative. That said, for a thorough understanding of a major historical event, it always best to get the story from the horse’s mouth. The Davis perspective may be biased, but those perspectives did not change between the war and the writing of his memoir. That consistency makes this book valuable for understanding the motivations for war.
Davis extols victories and offers strained excuses for errors and failures. In Davis’ mind, nothing was his fault, the Confederacy was always honorable, the Union always vile. For those not imbued with The Cause mythology, this heavy-handed prejudice can be off-putting, but I found it helps understand the ethos of the period.
Most history books are written by winners. If you don’t study the losers, then you have an incomplete picture. An example would be the hallowed Federalist Papers. There is a collection of opposition opinion pieces called the Anti-Federalist Papers. I suggest reading both and I highly recommend Jefferson Davis’ A Short History of the Confederate States of America.
(This is a research book for Maelstrom, a sequel to Tempest at Dawn.)
March 12, 2021
I came away thoroughly impressed by Davis' understanding of the U.S. Constitution. Usually billed in the northern states as a seditious act, secession was indeed a right of the states. Also, I had never been taught that states had the true source of sovereignty over rights and authority, not the federal government, but Davis' reasoning is solid. O, that we had elected officials today who understood their proper governmental powers.
March 20, 2018
It was a bit too long....
November 13, 2017
Contains many of the same tedious, legalistic arguments for secession as The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, by the same author, as well as much of the same hackneyed, revisionist positions, i. e., the War was not fought over slavery but over something called States Rights. This book, however, is a shorter and better read. It has many sections which have the character of a primary source. I especially enjoyed the chapter on the First Battle of Bull Run, at which Davis was present and which he to a certain extent organized. Also remarkable is his apology for wearing women's clothes when finally apprehended by Union forces.
The Lost Cause has no better exponent, which is why it lost. My Confederate ancestors fought and died for something, and I fear it was nothing better than the terribly discredited and convoluted ideals expressed in this book.
Don't read this unless you are, like me, a serious amateur or professional historian.
The Lost Cause has no better exponent, which is why it lost. My Confederate ancestors fought and died for something, and I fear it was nothing better than the terribly discredited and convoluted ideals expressed in this book.
Don't read this unless you are, like me, a serious amateur or professional historian.
April 12, 2017
One side of a war!
Very long read for sure. Wrote to praise the southern side only. More of the battles than of government working.
Very long read for sure. Wrote to praise the southern side only. More of the battles than of government working.
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