Themes of the American Civil War
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| Government. Accurately described by Robert Penn Warren as a work of “legalistic and constitutional apologetics” (biographer William C. Davis bluntly calls it a terrible book”), 49 there are preciously few signs in its pages that the lessons of defeat had been learned. In the opening chapter Davis insisted that the opinions and sympathies of the world had been misled by the antithetical use of the terms freedom and slavery but, in a revealing moment, he accepted that the misunderstanding was natural, given that the idea of freedom was so captivating that of slavery so “repellent,” to the moral sense of mankind. Southern statesmen may perhaps have been too indifferent to this consideration—in their ardent pursuit of principles, overlooking the effects of phrases he concluded It was probably the closest Jefferson Davis ever came to an admission of failure. Notes 1. Clement Eaton, Jefferson Davis (New York, 1977), p. 273. The modern biographical studies are William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis The Man and his Houri (New York, 1991); William J. Cooper, Jr, Jefferson Davis, American (New York, 2000; paperback edn. 2001); Felicity Allen, Jefferson Davis Unconquerable Heart (Columbia, MO, 2000); and Herman Hattaway and Richard E. Beringer, Jefferson Davis, Confederate President (Lawrence, KS, 2002). The most comprehensive of the earlier studies is Hudson Strode, Jefferson Davis, 3 vols. (New York. David M. Potter, Jefferson Davis and the Political Factors in Confederate Defeat in David Donald, ed, Why the North won the Civil War, paperback edn. (New York, 1962), p. Among the many comparisons made between Davis and Lincoln as war leaders, perhaps the most favorable to the former is provided by Rembert W. Patrick, who argues that Davis “was able to get proportionately more from his people, resources of the South considered, than was Abraham Lincoln from his Patrick, Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet (Baton Rouge, LA, 1944), p. 45. For an insightful comparison of the two men’s lives, careers and beliefs, see Brian R. Dirck, Lincoln and Davis Imagining America, 1809–1865 (Lawrence, KS. Bruce Collins, The Making of Jefferson Davis Journal of American Studies 18 (December, p. William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, 2 vols. (London, 1863) II, pp. 376–7. Russell’s first impressions of Davis are revealed in Martin Crawford, ed, William Howard Russell’s Civil War Private Diary and Letters, 1861–1862 (Athens, GA, 1992), p. Davis and the Confederacy • 165 Paul D. Escott, After Secession Jefferson Davis and the Failure of Confederate Nationalism (Baton Rouge, LA, 1978), p. E. Merton Coulter, The Confederate States of America, 1861–1865 (Baton Rouge, LA, p. 401. 7. Escott, After Secession, p. Quoted in John McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation Southern Nationalists and Nationalism, 1830–1860 (New York, 1979), pp. Quoted in Paul C. Nagel, One Nation Indivisible The Union in American Thought (New York, p. Eaton, Jefferson Davis, p. 17. 11. Dirck, Lincoln and Davis, p. Eaton, Jefferson Davis, p. Cooper, Jr, Jefferson Davis, chapters 5–10, provides the most detailed account of the future President’s antebellum career. 14. Dunbar Rowland, ed, Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: His Letters, Papers and Speeches, vols. (Jackson, MS, 1923) II, p. 252. See also Dirck, Lincoln and Davis, pp. 84–8. Dirck offers a distinctive view of Davis’s nationalism as strongly rooted in personal attachment. 15. For the text of Davis’s inaugural address see James D. Richardson, ed, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, 2 vols. (Nashville, 1906) I, pp. 32–6. The occasion is described in Davis, Download 2.25 Mb. Share with your friends:
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