USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. I > Part 63
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He was a candidate for United States senator during the election of the legislature in 1856, and was supposed to be beaten by Jacob Thompson, but finally won by two votes, and resigned the secre- taryship to re-enter the senate of the United States, March 4, 1857.
In the winter of 1858 he was very sick with laryngitis and was threatened with the loss of his left eye. One of the warmest and most intimate friends of the family in this emergency was William H. Seward. After the adjournment of that session, in which he could not take much part, Mr. Davis and his family spent the summer at Portland, Me. Later, he was entertained at Boston, and he spoke at Faneuil Hall, in October, rejoicing that the Democrats of the States he had visited "asserted the same broad constitutional prin- ciple for which we have been contending, by which we are willing to live, for which we are willing to die." "Why is it," he asked, "that you are agitated in relation to the domestic affairs of other communities? Why is it that the peace of the country is disturbed in order that one people may judge of what another people may do? Is there any political power to authorize such interference? If so, where is it? You did not surrender your sovereignty. You gave to the Federal government certain functions. It was your agent, created for specific purposes. Has it a right to determine what is property? Surely not; that belongs to every community
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to decide for itself ; you judge in your case-every other State must judge in its case." Regarding slavery, he asked, "How do they decide it is a sin? By what standard do they measure it? Not the Constitution; the Constitution recognized the property in slaves in many forms, and imposes obligations in connection with that recognition. Not the Bible; that justifies it. Not the good of so- ciety ; for if they go where it exists, they find that society recognizes it as good. What then, is their standard? The good of mankind? Is that seen in the diminished resources of the country? Is that seen in the diminished comfort of the world?" He said that "If each community, in accordance with the principles of our govern- ment, should regard its domestic struggles as a part of the common whole, and struggle for the benefit of all, this would steadily lead us to fraternity, to unity, to cooperation, to the increase of our hap- piness and the extension of the benefits of our useful example over mankind." In this address also, he said, "This State sovereignty -this community independence-has never been surrendered, and there is no power in the Federal government to coerce a State. Will anyone ask me, then, how a State is to be held to the fulfillment of its obligations? My answer is, by its honor. The obligation is the more sacred to observe every feature of the compact, because there is no power to enforce it." His doctrine regarding the ter- ritories was that the inhabitants who first went into a territory could not "deprive any citizen of the United States of those rights which belong to him as an equal owner of the soil." The people of the territories had no sovereignty until a State was organized and admitted into the Union. "This accursed agitation, this in- termeddling with the affairs of other people, is that alone which will promote a desire in the mind of anyone to separate these great and glorious States."
In conclusion he expressed a hope that the triumph of the Dem- ocratic party in the North would avert the danger. "I respect that feeling which regards the Union as too strong to be broken. But, at the same time, in sober judgment, it will not do to treat too lightly the danger which has existed and still exists."
In the Congress of 1859-60, the intensity of sectional strife was increased by the John Brown raid, the Kansas warfare, and Hinton Helper's appeal for organization against the slaveholders' domina- tion in the South. Senator Davis was the main opponent of the Douglas doctrine of the right of the inhabitants of a territory to ex- clude slavery. On Feb. 2, 1860, he presented his famous series of seven resolutions, which were debated until the latter part of May,
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when they were adopted by a party vote of the senate. These resolutions asserted the doctrines of the defenders of slavery, that "any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions of the others, on any pretext whatever, political, moral or religious, with the view to their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, insulting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquillity-objects for which the Constitution was formed ; and by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy the Union ;" that open or covert attacks on slavery were a "viola- tion of the most solemn obligations;" that neither congress nor a territorial legislature had the right to prevent the establishment of slavery in a territory; but only when a constitution was formed for a State, could the question be decided; that all laws to defeat or nullify the fugitive slave laws where "hostile in character, subver- sive of the Constitution and revolutionary in their character." While the discussion was going on, the Democratic national convention met April 23, at Charleston, S. C., and split on the Territorial question. The main part balloted forty-nine times for a presidential nominee, in each of which ballots Massachusetts voted for Jefferson Davis. Mr. Davis was a delegate of Mississippi to this convention and op- posed the secession of the Southern delegates. (See Secession.)
In the presidential campaign of 1860, he supported John C. Breck- inridge. Early in November it was known that Abraham Lincoln would receive a large majority of the electorial votes.
Governor Pettus summoned the legislature in extraordinary ses- sion, and the congressional delegation, including Mr. Davis, met with the governor to determine a policy. The policy adopted was immediate secession, and encouragement of South Carolina to take the lead, but according to the statement of Reuben Davis, this was opposed by Mr. Davis. (Mayes' Lamar, p. 87).
O. R. Singleton wrote of the same conference that "Mr. Davis, with perhaps one other gentleman, opposed immediate and separate State action, declaring himself opposed to secession as long as the hope of a peaceable remedy remained." Perhaps explanatory is his letter, about the same time, to R. B. Rhett, of South Carolina : "If a convention of the State [Mississippi] were assembled, the proposition to secede from the Union, independently of support from neighboring States, would probably fail. . If the secession of South Carolina should be followed by an attempt to coerce her back into the Union, that act of folly, usurpation and wickedness would enlist every true Southern man for her defense."
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Such States as Mississippi, with a large Northern element, "will be slower and less unanimous. My opinion is, therefore, as it has been, in favor of seeking to bring those States into coopera- tion before asking for a popular decision upon a new policy and relation to the nations of the earth." (Davis Memorial). A refer- ence to the newspapers of that period will be sufficient to indicate that Mr. Davis and the 'cooperationists," were not in entire sympa- thy. Those known as "cooperationists" were those whom Mr. Davis feared would defeat the proposition of secession in convention, as they defeated it in 1851. Still, it appears that the fire-eaters spoke of Mr. Davis as "slow," perhaps misunderstanding his quiet intensity and conservative desire for settlement if possible.
Returning to Washington Senator Davis was made a member of the committee of thirteen to devise a plan of reconciliation. He was also a leader in the organization of the congressmen from the Southern States, and was chosen as a member of the committee which directed the secession movement, and exerted such influence as it could over President Buchanan that secession might proceed peacefully. As has been stated, it was the doctrine of Mr. Davis, as of the Democratic party generally, that there was no right to interfere with the secession of a State. He and his associates restrained acts of hostility at Pensacola and Charleston, that there might be no excuse to drive Mr. Buchanan to exert force. This congressional committee was in communication with the various Southern State governments, conventions, and military comman- ders. After the Mississippi convention had adopted the ordinance of secession, Jan. 9, he continued in his seat as United States sena- tor until Jan. 21, awaiting official notice of the action of his State. As the opposition in the senate denied that the ordinance of seces- sion had any validity, there could be no objection to this course. In his own words: "Telegraphic intelligence of the secession of Mississippi had reached Washington some considerable time be- fore the fact was officially communicated to me. This official knowledge I considered it proper to await before taking formal leave of the senate. My associates from Alabama and Florida concurred in this view. Accordingly, having received notification of the secession of these three States about the same time, on Jan- uary 21st, Messrs. Yulee and Mallory, of Florida, Fitzpatrick and Clay, of Alabama, and myself, announced the withdrawal of the State from which we were respectively acredited and took leave of the Senate at the same time."
Mr. Davis then made his farewell address, in which he alluded
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to his former declarations of the right of a State to secede," as an essential attribute of State sovereignty." He hoped no one would confound his attitude, with the theory that a State might remain in the Union and nullify the laws. Calhoun had advocated that, Mr. Davis said, "because it preserved the Union." "Secession be- longs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign." There were now, he said, no laws of the United States to be executed within the boundaries of Mississippi. President Jackson had declared he would execute the laws in South Carolina, when nullification was proclaimed, but "that is not the case which is now presented." He reminded his colleagues that when it was proposed to coerce Massachusetts to enforce the fugitive slave law, he had objected, and said that if Massachusetts chose to secede he would not vote one man nor one dollar to coerce her back. To the Senators from the North he said in behalf of his people: "They hope and I hope for peaceful relations with you, though we must part," at the same time assur- ing them that if it was to be war they would meet manfully in war.
"There was scarcely a dry eye in the multitude as he took his seat with the words, 'it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu.' " At this time Mr. Davis expressed himself as earnestly desiring peace.
There was talk of arresting the withdrawing senators. Mrs. Davis wrote: "Mr. Davis remained a week in Washington, hoping that he might be the person arrested. A part of this time he was ill and confined to his bed. 'If they will give me time ; he said, 'all is not lost; violence on one side, and extreme measures of wrong on the other now, will dissolve the Union.' And by tele- grams and letters to every Southern State he endeavored to post- pone their action."
His own statement is: "For my part, while believing that seces- sion was right, and properly a peaceable remedy, I had never be- lieved that it would be permitted to be peaceably exercised." On his trip home he was called on for many speeches, and, according to Mrs. Davis, "he told them to prepare for a long and bloody war." Reaching Jackson, Miss., he found his commission as major-general commanding the Mississippi army, and at once entered into the work of preparing for military defense. Of this he wrote: "If the purpose of the Northern States to make war upon us because of secession had been foreseen, preparations to meet the consequences would have been contemperaneous with the adoption of a resort to that remedy-the possibility of which had for many years been
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contemplated." He also referred, in his Rise and Fall, to the lack of arms, as "a clear proof of the absence of any desire or expectation of war." In his private talk with his wife, "He was deeply dis- tressed by the temper of the people, for war; hoped yet for a guarantee of 'equal rights' that would reunite the country; did not think the plan for two presidents practicable; feared that the slave property would be lost eventually, in any case; but was evi- dently settled on the independence of the South" (Vol. II, 11-12).
Meanwhile the Congress at Montgomery was considering the elec- tion of a president of the provisional government of the Confederate States of America. There were other candidates in the South- even in Mississippi A. G. Brown had been proposed. But the Mississippi delegation was unitedly for Mr. Davis. "No other man was spoken of for president in my hearing," wrote Judge Campbell. He was elected February 9, and a telegram of notification soon reached him at his Briarfield home.
Mrs. Davis wrote that he told her "as a man might speak of a sentence of death." Repairing to Montgomery he delivered his in- augural address at the State capitol, at 1 p. m., Monday, Feb. 18, 1861. He was still of the opinion, as he told Judge Sharkey at Jackson, "that there would be war, long and bloody." In his inaugural address he said, "As a necessity, not a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation ; and henceforth our energies must be directed to the conduct of our own affairs, and the perpet- uity of the Confederacy which we have formed. If a just percep- tion of mutual interest shall permit us, peaceably, to pursue our separate political career, my most earnest desire will have been ful- filled. But if this be denied us, and the integrity of our territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us, with firm resolve, to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence on a just cause."
Generally, it was felt that Mr. Davis's administration as secretary of war and actual experience as a soldier commended him as the best man for an office which was commander-in-chief of the army as well as civil executive. Both functions Mr. Davis exercised during the succeeding four years. At the outset his health was very poor. When he left Montgomery for Richmond, in June, it was upon his bed. "His mails were heavy with warnings of an attempt at assassina- tion ; therefore it was a source of relief to us to know he had gone to Virginia." (Mrs. Davis). He was present in person at the bat- tle of Manassas, on account of a fear of friction between Generals Johnston and Beauregard, and aided in rallying the Con-
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federate troops to grasp a victory out of the jaws of defeat. Critics afterward thought that in addition to this the Union army should have been devoured, and there was a long discussion as to whether Davis, Beauregard, or Johnston was to blame for not pursuing in the night, when the facts of the rout and retreat were unknown.
Soon after this Gen. Johnston took such an attitude that the president regarded him as insubordinate, and a rupture occurred between them that was serious in its results. Gen. Beauregard also became an enemy of the president, from circumstances connected with the battle of Manassas. The cares of the president were also increased by the organization of a party in congress in opposition to him. This did not cease throughout the war. Senator Foote, Con- gressman from Tennessee, did not relax any of the enmity which had followed their encounter at the time of the Compro- mise of 1850, over the question of acceptance or resistance to the acts of Congress. Mr. Davis was a West Pointer and was accused of endangering success by his preference for such generals. He wrote his wife: "It is hard to see incompetence losing opportunity and wasting hard-gotten means, but harder still to bear is the knowledge that there is no available remedy. I cultivate hope and patience and trust to the blunders of the enemy and the gal- lantry of our troops for ultimate success." It was after this that Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, being admitted to oppor- tunity, changed the face of affairs, and made the struggle a hopeful one.
Mr. Davis was inaugurated as president, under the permanent organization, Feb. 22, 1862.
In December, 1862, he made a tour of the West, reviewing the armies. The Confederacy was then at its zenith, and the earlier successes of Lee and Jackson were confirmed by the victories of Fredericksburg and Chickasaw Bayou. But in April, 1863, the president had to face a bread riot in Richmond. He emptied his pockets to the mob, and then ordered the troops to load and pre- pare to fire if the crowd did not immediately disperse. This was effectual. The rapid course of events brought the Confederacy face to face with the certainty of ultimate destruction in July. Vicksburg yielded to Grant; Retreating from Gettysburg, Lee said, "It is my fault," and tendered Mr. Davis his resignation. This taking of all blame to himself was sublime. The president's re- ply is one of the very best of his state papers. "But suppose, my dear friend, that I were to admit, with all their implications, the points which you present, where am I to find that new commander
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who is to possess the greater ability which you believe to be re- quired? I do not doubt the readiness with which you would give way to one who could accomplish all that you have wished, and you will do me the justice to believe that if Providence should kindly offer such a person for our use, I would not hesitate to avail of his services."
There were movements for restoration of the Union, or peace of some sort, in North Carolina, and Georgia. Mr. Davis, writing to Governor Vance, of the first State, told him that the United States government refused to treat with any recognition of the Con- federacy as a government. "Yet peace on other terms is impos- sible. To obtain the sole terms to which you or I could listen, this struggle must continue until the enemy is beaten out of his vain confidence in our subjugation. Then and not till then, will it be possible to treat of peace." This was the policy of Mr. Davis to the end. He would not submit to a renewal of the former relations, considering it "disloyalty to our own States," and subjugation to Mr. Lincoln.
In his last message he said of the Hampton Roads conference, in which Mr. Lincoln consented to meet personally, representa- tives selected by the Confederate government, "that the govern- ment of the United States would not enter into any agreement or treaty whatever with the Confederate States nor with any single State, and that the only possible mode of obtaining peace was by laying down our arms, disbanding our forces, and yielding uncon- ditional obedience to the laws of the United States, including those passed for the confiscation of our property and the constitu- tional amendment for the abolition of slavery. There re- mains for us then no choice but to continue this contest to a final issue ; for the people of the Confederacy can be but little known to him who supposes it possible they would ever consent to purchase at the cost of degradation and slavery, permission to live in a country garrisoned by their own negroes and governed by officers sent by the conqueror to rule over them." In this message also he wrote: "The bill for employing negroes for soldiers has not yet reached me, though the printed jouranls of your proceedings inform me of its passage. Much benefit is anticipated from this measure, though far less than would have resulted at an earlier date, so as to afford time for their organization and instruction dur- ing the winter months."
As the evacuation of Richmond grew near at hand he insisted on Mrs. Davis taking the children and going into North Carolina,
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saying, "If I live you can come to me when the struggle is ended, but I do not expect to survive the destruction of constitutional liberty." He also advised her to leave if the enemy approached, "make for the Florida coast and take ship for a foreign country."
Going to Danville he issued his proclamation of April 5, in which he said : "We have now entered upon a new phase of the struggle. Relieved from the necessity of guarding particular points, our army will be free to move from point to point, to strike the enemy in detail far from his base. Let us but will it and we are free." When asked at Danville, if Lee's surrender would end the war, he replied "By no means. We'll fight it out to the Mississippi river." Gen. Lee surrendered April 9, and Mr. Davis, with a portion of his cabinet, proceeded to Greensboro, N. C. Gen. Johnston had near there the remnants of the three armies of the Confederacy. In an in- terview with Johnston, the president appeared yet hopeful, urged that the disasters were not fatal, and the enemy could be whipped
yet, if the people would turn out. Johnston replied plainly that the people were tired of the war, the soldiers were constantly leaving the ranks and going home, and the only hope was for favorable terms. Beauregard being asked his opinion, said, "I concur." Whereupon the president dictated the letter to Gen. Sherman asking an armistice to arrange terms of general peace, a proposition which Grant had refused, and which Sherman was severely cen- sured for yielding to. About April 16, Mr. Davis went on, appar- ently with the intention of joining Gen. Taylor at Meridian and continuing the war beyond the Mississippi. Meanwhile President Lincoln had been assassinated, and a reward of $100,000 was offered for the arrest of Mr. Davis on the charge of complicity in a plot con- nected therewith. In Georgia Mr. Davis rejoined his family. He was sick and rode in the ambulance. It was understood that the party was on the way to Texas. But Col. William Preston Johns- ton suggested that it would be impossible to get through Missis- sippi, and that a safer route would be by sea from the Florida coast. Early on the morning of May 10, a body of Michigan and Wisconsin cavalry came upon the party, at Irwinsville. Mr. Davis wrote: "Many falsehoods have been uttered in regard to my capture, which have been exposed in publications by persons there present-by Secretary Reagan, by the members of my personal staff, and by the colored coachman, Jim Jones. We were,
when prisoners, subjected to petty pillage and to annoy- ances such as military gentlemen never commit or permit." He was taken to Macon, and given a room at the hotel, under guard,
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where Gen. Wilson made his headquarters. At his request, for the convenience of his family, he and they were taken to Augusta, where they took boat, and being transferred to an ocean steamer, were taken to Hampton Roads. After a few days he was confined in the gunroom of a casemate at Fortress Monroe, and his family were sent back to Savannah. On May 23, upon the order of Gen. Miles, manacles were put upon him, after he had made a desperate resistance. This action of Miles, was an unnecessary and cruel degredation. On the 26th the irons were removed at the suggestion of his physician, he was allowed the use of tobacco, and a month later was permitted to walk on the ramparts. Clement C. Clay, who was imprisoned at the same place, until the spring of 1866, wrote to Lamar, "There is scarcely an officer in the Fortress besides the commandant who does not regard his treatment as cruel and unmagnanimous and mean." In October he was given more com- fortable quarters. Meanwhile, the allegation of his relation to the assassination had been found to have no foundation, and the at- torney-general of the United States, after long consultation with eminent lawyers, advised President Johnson that Mr. Davis could not be convicted of treason by any competent and independent tribunal, and that therefore he ought not to be tried. He was, although he constantly asked for a trial, kept in confinement, until the spring of 1867, when he was brought before the United States court at Richmond on a charge of treason and admitted to bail. He was never tried, and never asked to be pardoned. He was indicted for treason in May, 1866 ; was delivered to the civil author- ity under a writ of habeas corpus, May 14, 1867, after a campaign in his behalf by the New York Tribune, and was at once admitted to bail, the bond being signed by Horace Greeley, Gerrit Smith, and (through his representatives) Cornelius Vanderbilt. In De- cember, 1867, the United States court at Richmond heard a motion to quash the indictment, and dividing thereon, Chief Justice Chase for and Justice Underwood against, the question was certified to the supreme court. But the prosecution was dismissed.
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