The Rise and Resignation of Jefferson Davis (Pg. 3-17)

In beginning Fort Sumter to Perryville, Shelby Foote begins like all good classical writers (Homer, Virgil) in media res "in the middle of things." South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia have seceded from the US, and Senator Jefferson Davis of MS has resigned his post in January 1861.

Davis was a very tentative secessionist unlike Robert Toombs and other radical fire eaters. He agreed that states had the right to secede, but he was  bit apprehensive about leaving the Union after over 40 years of statehood. Even though he knew secession was unwise economically, Davis let his emotions and patriotism for his home state trump his reason and put his full strength behind his own state. Mississippi, not the United States, was Davis' native country.

But Jefferson Davis' real home state was Kentucky where he lived as a third generation American, the son of a farmer and Revolutionary War veteran. He was born in 1808 and named after Thomas Jefferson. This is ironic because Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence, leading to American separation from Britain.

Davis decided to be a politician while living on his father's plantation in Natchez, MS. He skipped school for two days to work in the fields but returned, wanting a white collar job. At 16, (the idea of adolescence was unheard of in 19th century US) Davis was accepted to West Point. John C. Calhoun, later famous for nullifying the tariff on exported goods to SC, wrote his letter of recommendation. This would be Davis' first link with politics and secession.

Though a poor student (23rd out 34), Davis made many lifelong connections at West Point. His roommate was Leonidas Polk, who he made a lieutenant general in the West, and he got in lots of scraps with Joseph Johnston, who he removed from command twice in Virginia and Georgia. Two cadets he looked up to were Albert Sidney Johnston and Robert E. Lee, who became full generals in the Confederate Army.

Davis' immediate experiences after college give one an insight into his character. He did well in small-scale Indian fighting in the Midwest, earning promotion to 1st lieutenant and having great guerrilla fighting skills. Davis let these experiences go to his head and often overruled his military advisers, like replacing the Mexican War veteran Joseph Johnston with "Old Wooden Head" John Hood, leading to the fall of Atlanta. Davis also let his emotions get the best of him, eloping with Knox Taylor, daughter of future president Zachary Taylor and becoming a planter in Mississippi. This was not the first time he would  put his emotions before a promising career. (senator)

However, Knox died, and this was a major turning point in Davis' life. After visiting friends in Cuba, New York, and DC, Davis wanted to be a planter and politician, instead of a soldier. His brother Joseph had the biggest library in MS and gave him 40 acres of land, which was the start of his plantation Brierfield. During this time, Davis studied famous political works by Thomas Jefferson, Adam Smith, and John Locke. These authors definitely inspired his later ideas of the right to separate, a hands off economy, and government by the consent of the governed. Brierfield, Davis' plantation, was run very democratically. Slaves could only be punished if found guilty by an all black jury. Brierfield's overseer James Pemberton was always called by his first name, James. Davis didn't blacks as equal to whites, but he treated his slaves with dignity and honor, according to Foote. But this could be slightly biased as Foote is a native Mississippian.

Instead of remaining a bachelor scholar-planter, Davis put his brain and land power to work. He married young Varina Howell (20 years younger than him), who was a Whig to his Democrat. She was very intelligent about classical languages and politics and would become a great First Lady. Davis became a state representative in 1844 and tried to champion state rights' by unsuccessfully passing a bill to replace standing armies with militia.

The Mexican War was another major paradigm shift for Davis politically. After successfully defending Buena Vista from Mexican cavalry, he became a war hero but declined a brigadier general commission from the president because the state chose militia officers, not the federal government. In four short years, Davis went from a simple Jeffersonian Democrat who wanted to protect states' rights to a Southern imperialist.

But what was a Southern imperialist? Davis and men, like Calhoun, William Yancey, and Robert Toombs wanted to expand slavery and the Southern cotton economy to territories won by the Mexican War, like Texas, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and especially gold-rich California. They also wanted to eventually expand into the warm climates of Cuba and Central America. Unlike Yancey and Toombs, Davis wanted these policies to be made within the Union, not through secession.

During the late 1840s, Davis had decided what he was going to be politically: a paradox. He wanted the South to dominate the US, but was against secession. He wanted states' rights but opposed Henry Clay's 1850 Compromise that gave individual states the ability to be slave or free. Davis' inability to reconcile these dogmatic paradoxes in slippery world of politics led to his defeat by Compromise supporter Henry Foote and an early retirement to his plantation in 1851.

Franklin Pierce gave Davis another shot at politics when he made Davis his Secretary of War in 1853. Davis' political connections were beginning to pay off, and he still had some of his prestige from the Mexican War to work off of. As secretary, Davis renovated West Point and built a railroad from Memphis to Vicksburg, MS using $100 million in federal funds. He continued to be an imperialist, hoping to extend slavery and maybe even the slave trade into Cuba. Working in the cabinet, Davis began to become sympathetic to the idea of a big central government which he brought to his government of the Confederacy.

After Pierce didn't run for re-election, Davis became senator from MS and "champion of the South." He was the perfect moderate in a time when fire eater Preston Books (SC) caned abolitionist Charles Sumner (MA) into a bloody pulp on the Senate floor. Davis kept his policies of Southern imperialism while actively campaigning against secession. If he had remained true to his political principles, instead of resigning with his free state, Davis could have found refuge in the North as a moderate. I could see him returning to Kentucky, his hometown and where he studied at Transylvania University and being a senator, governor, or even a general in the Civil War.

But sectionalism came before Southern imperialism, and Davis joined the Confederacy. He regretted leaving the US, unlike Toombs, who said, "Georgia is on the warpath." Instead of trying to join the new Confederate government, Davis was commisioned a major general of militia and began to raise his army. However, on February, 10, 1861, he received a telegram electing him president of the Confederacy  and spoke of it "like a man might speak of a sentence of death." His dream of being champion of the South was realized in a different way than he liked.

What if Jefferson Davis wasn't elected president of the Confederacy and remained leader of militia in Mississippi? If a fire eater like Yancey, Toombs, or Rhett had been elected, some of the moderate slave states like Tennessee, Missouri, or Virginia wouldn't have joined the CSA. Davis, a cunning battlefield tactician and good at guerilla warfare, would have held out in the bayous of MS, but the Confederacy would have had not even a little bit of industry and crumble behind a Union army led by Robert E. Lee.

What is your opinion of Jefferson Davis? Was he a racist? Traitor? Second Thomas Jefferson? Guided by his emotions? Comments would be awesome...

Coming soon: Honest Abe (Pgs. 17-35)