The Life of Jefferson Davis

Fellow-citizens: On this, the birthday of the man most identified with the establishment of American independence, and beneath the monument erected to commemorate his heroic virtues and those of his compatriots, we have assembled, to usher into existence the permanent government of the Confederate States. Through this instrumentality, under the favor of Divine Providence, we hope to perpetuate the principles of our revolutionary fathers. The day, the memory, and the purpose seem fitly associated.

It is with mingled feelings of humility and pride that I appear to take, in the presence of the people, and before high Heaven, the oath prescribed as a qualification for the exalted station to which the unanimous voice of the people has called me. Deeply sensible of all that is implied by this manifestation of the people’s confidence, I am yet more profoundly impressed by the vast responsibility of the office, and humbly feel my own unworthiness.

In return for their kindness, I can only offer assurances of the gratitude with which it is received, and can but pledge a zealous devotion of every faculty to the service of those who have chosen me as their Chief Magistrate.

When a long course of class legislation, directed not to the general welfare, but to the aggrandizement of the Northern section of the Union, culminated in a warfare on the domestic institutions of the Southern States; when the dogmas of a sectional party, substituted for the provisions of the constitutional compact, threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation of which that Union was established.

Whatever of hope some may have entertained that a returning sense of justice would remove the danger with which our rights were threatened, and render it possible to preserve the Union of the Constitution, must have been dispelled by the malignity and barbarity of the Northern States in the prosecution of the existing war. The confidence of the most hopeful among us must have been destroyed by the disregard they have recently exhibited for all the time-honored bulwarks of civil and religious liberty. Bastiles filled with prisoners, arrested without civil process, or indictment duly found; the writ of habeas corpus suspended by executive mandate; a State Legislature controlled by the imprisonment of members whose avowed principles suggested to the Federal executive that there might be another added to the list of seceded States; elections held under threats of a military power; civil officers, peaceful citizens, and gentle women incarcerated for opinion’s sake, proclaimed the incapacity of our late associates to administer a government as free, liberal, and humane as that established for our common use.

For proof of the sincerity of our purpose to maintain our ancient institutions, we may point to the Constitution of the Confederacy and the laws enacted under it, as well as to the fact that, through all the necessities of an unequal struggle, there has been no act, on our part, to impair personal liberty or the freedom of speech, of thought, or of the press. The courts have been open, the judicial functions fully executed, and every right of the peaceful citizen maintained as securely as if a war of invasion had not disturbed the land.

The people of the States now confederated became convinced that the Government of the United States had fallen into the hands of a sectional majority, who would pervert the most sacred of all trusts to the destruction of the rights which it was pledged to protect. They believed that to remain longer in the Union would subject them to a continuance of a disparaging discrimination, submission to which would be inconsistent to their welfare and intolerable to a proud people. They, therefore, determined to sever its bonds, and establish a new confederacy for themselves.

The experiment, instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary union of sovereign States, for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been prevented by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. The Government had ceased to answer the ends for which it had been ordained and established. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers, and to preserve, in spirit as well as in form, a system of government we believed to be peculiarly fitted to our condition and full of promise for mankind, we determined to make a new association, composed of States homogeneous in interest, in policy, and in feeling.

True to our traditions of peace and love of justice, we sent commissioners to the United States to propose a fair and amicable settlement of all questions of public debt or property which might be in dispute. But the Government at Washington, denying our right to self-government, refused even to listen to any proposals for a peaceful separation. Nothing was then left to us but to prepare for war.

The first year in our history has been the most eventful in the annals of this continent. A new government has been established, and its machinery put in operation, over an area exceeding seven hundred thousand square miles. The great principles upon which we have been willing to hazard every thing that is dear to man have made conquests for us which could never have been achieved by the sword. Our Confederacy has grown from six to thirteen States; and Maryland, already united to us by hallowed memories and material interests, will, I believe, when able to speak with unstifled voice, connect her destiny with the South. Our people have rallied, with unexampled unanimity, to the support of the great principles of constitutional government, with firm resolve to perpetuate by arms the rights which they could not peacefully secure. A million of men, it is estimated, are now standing in hostile array, and waging war along a frontier of thousands of miles; battles have been fought, sieges have been conducted, and, although the contest is not ended, and the tide for the moment is against us, the final result in our favor is not doubtful.

The period is near at hand when our foes must sink under the immense load of debt which they have incurred – a debt which, in their efforts to subjugate us, has already attained such fearful dimensions as will subject them to burdens which must continue to oppress them for generations to come.

We, too, have had our trials and difficulties. That we are to escape them in the future is not to be hoped. It was to be expected, when we entered upon this war, that it would expose our people to sacrifices, and cost them much both of money and blood. But we knew the value of the object for which we struggled, and understood the nature of the war in which we were engaged. Nothing could be so bad as failure, and any sacrifice would be cheap as the price of success in such a contest.

But the picture has its lights as well as its shadows. This great strife has awakened in the people the highest emotions and qualities of the human soul. It is cultivating feelings of patriotism, virtue, and courage. Instances of self-sacrifice and of generous devotion to the noble cause for which we are contending are rife throughout the land. Never has a people evinced a more determined spirit than that now animating men, women, and children in every part of our country. Upon the first call, the men fly to arms; and wives and mothers send their husbands and sons to battle without a murmur of regret.

It was, perhaps, in the ordination of Providence that we were to be taught the value of our liberties by the price which we pay for them.

The recollections of this great contest, with all its common traditions of glory, of sacrifices, and of blood, will be the bond of harmony and enduring affection amongst the people, producing unity in policy, fraternity in sentiment, and joint effort in war.

Nor have the material sacrifices of the past year been made without some corresponding benefits. If the acquiescence of foreign nations in a pretended blockade has deprived us of our commerce with them, it is fast making us a self-supporting and an independent people. The blockade, if effectual and permanent, could only serve to divert our industry from the production of articles for export, and employ it in supplying commodities for domestic use.

It is a satisfaction that we have maintained the war by our unaided exertions. We have neither asked nor received assistance from any quarter. Yet the interest involved is not wholly our own. The world at large is concerned in opening our markets to its commerce. When the independence of the Confederate States is recognized by the nations of the earth, and we are free to follow our interests and inclinations by cultivating foreign trade, the Southern States will offer to manufacturing nations the most favorable markets which ever invited their commerce. Cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, provisions, timber, and naval stores will furnish attractive exchanges. Nor would the constancy of these supplies be likely to be disturbed by war. Our confederate strength will be too great to attempt aggression; and never was there a people whose interests and principles committed them so fully to a peaceful policy as those of the Confederate States. By the character of their productions, they are too deeply interested in foreign commerce wantonly to disturb it. War of conquest they can not wage, because the Constitution of their Confederacy admits of no coerced association. Civil war there can not be between States held together by their volition only. This rule of voluntary association, which can not fail to be conservative, by securing just and impartial government at home, does not diminish the security of the obligations by which the Confederate States may be bound to foreign nations. In proof of this, it is to be remembered that, at the first moment of asserting their right of secession, these States proposed a settlement on the basis of a common liability for the obligations of the General Government.

Fellow-citizens, after the struggles of ages had consecrated the right of the Englishman to constitutional representative government, our colonial ancestors were forced to vindicate that birthright by an appeal to arms. Success crowned their efforts, and they provided for their posterity a peaceful remedy against future aggression.

The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. At the darkest hour of our struggle, the provisional gives place to the permanent government. After a series of successes and victories, which covered our arms with glory, we have recently met with serious disasters. But, in the heart of a people resolved to be free, these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.

To show ourselves worthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us by the patriots of the Revolution, we must emulate that heroic devotion which made reverse to them but the crucible in which their patriotism was refined.

With confidence in the wisdom and virtue of those who will share with me the responsibility, and aid me in the conduct of public affairs; securely relying on the patriotism and courage of the people, of which the present war has furnished so many examples, I deeply feel the weight of the responsibilities I now, with unaffected diffidence, am about to assume; and, fully realizing the inadequacy of human power to guide and to sustain, my hope is reverently fixed on Him, whose favor is ever vouchsafed to the cause which is just. With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowledging the Providence which has so visibly protected the Confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to Thee, O God! I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke Thy blessing on my country and its cause.

The effect of this address upon the public was electrical. The anxious and dispirited assemblage, which, for more than an hour previous to the arrival of the President, had braved the inclement sky and traversed the almost impassable avenues of Capitol Square, in eager longing for re-assuring words from him upon whose courage and will so much depended, was not disappointed. A consciousness of a burden removed, of doubts dispelled, of the re-assured feeling, which comes with strengthened conviction that confidence has not been misplaced, animated and thrilled the crowd as it caught the impressive tones and gestures of the speaker. In the memory of every beholder must forever dwell the imposing presence of Mr. Davis, as, with uplifted hands, he pronounced the beautiful and appropriate petition to Providence, which forms the peroration.

The message sent by President Davis to Congress, a few days after the inauguration, is hardly inferior in importance, as a historical document, to the inaugural address. In view of its explanations of the earlier policy of the Confederate Government, of the causes of recent disasters, and indications of important changes in the future conduct of the war, we present entire this first message of Mr. Davis to the First Congress assembled under the permanent Constitution:

To the Senate and House of Representatives of the Confederate States—

In obedience to the constitutional provision, requiring the President, from time to time, to give to the Congress information of the state of the Confederacy, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient, I have to communicate that, since my message at the last session of the Provisional Congress, events have demonstrated that the Government had attempted more than it had power successfully to achieve. Hence, in the effort to protect, by our arms, the whole of the territory of the Confederate States, sea-board and inland, we have been so exposed as recently to encounter serious disasters. When the Confederacy was formed, the States composing it were, by the peculiar character of their pursuits, and a misplaced confidence in their former associates, to a great extent, destitute of the means for the prosecution of the war on so gigantic a scale as that which it has attained. The workshops and artisans were mainly to be found in the Northern States, and one of the first duties which devolved upon this Government was to establish the necessary manufactories, and in the meantime to obtain, by purchase from abroad, as far as practicable, whatever was required for the public defense. No effort has been spared to effect both these ends, and though the results have not equaled our hopes, it is believed that an impartial judgment will, upon full investigation, award to the various departments of the Government credit for having done all which human power and foresight enabled them to accomplish.

The valor and devotion of the people have not only sustained the efforts of the Government, but have gone far to supply its deficiencies.

The active state of military preparations among the nations of Europe, in April last, the date when our agents first went abroad, interposed unavoidable delays in the procurement of arms, and the want of a navy has greatly impeded our efforts to import military supplies of all sorts.

I have hoped for several days to receive official reports in relation to our discomfiture at Roanoke Island, and the fall of Fort Donelson. They have not yet reached me, and I am, therefore, unable to communicate to you such information of those events, and the consequences resulting from them, as would enable me to make recommendations founded upon the changed condition which they have produced. Enough is known of the surrender of Roanoke Island to make us feel that it was deeply humiliating, however imperfect may have been the preparations for defense. The hope is still entertained that our reported losses at Fort Donelson have been greatly exaggerated, inasmuch as I am not only unwilling, but unable to believe that a large army of our people have surrendered without a desperate effort to cut their way through investing forces, whatever may have been their number, and to endeavor to make a junction with other divisions of the army. But in the absence of that exact information which can only be afforded by official reports, it would be premature to pass judgment, and my own is reserved, as I trust yours will be, until that information is received. In the meantime, strenuous efforts have been made to throw forward reinforcements to the armies at the positions threatened, and I can not doubt that the bitter disappointments we have borne, by nerving the people to still greater exertions, will speedily secure results more accordant with our just expectation, and as favorable to our cause as those which marked the earlier periods of the war.

The reports of the Secretaries of War and the Navy will exhibit the mass of resources for the conduct of the war which we have been enabled to accumulate, notwithstanding the very serious difficulties against which we have contended.

They afford the cheering hope that our resources, limited as they were at the beginning of the contest, will, during its progress, become developed to such an extent as fully to meet our future wants.

The policy of enlistment for short terms, against which I have steadily contended from the commencement of the war, has, in my judgment, contributed, in no immaterial degree, to the recent reverses which we have suffered, and even now renders it difficult to furnish you an accurate statement of the army. When the war first broke out, many of our people could with difficulty be persuaded that it would be long or serious. It was not deemed possible that any thing so insane as a persistent attempt to subjugate these States could be made – still less that the delusion would so far prevail as to give to the war the vast proportions which it has assumed. The people, incredulous of a long war, were naturally averse to long enlistment, and the early legislation of Congress rendered it impracticable to obtain volunteers for a greater period than twelve months. Now, that it has become probable that the war will be continued through a series of years, our high-spirited and gallant soldiers, while generally reënlisting, are, from the fact of having entered the service for a short term, compelled, in many instances, to go home to make the necessary arrangements for their families during their prolonged absence.

The quotas of new regiments for the war, called for from the different States, are in rapid progress of organization. The whole body of our new levies and reënlisted men will probably be ready in the ranks within the next thirty days. But, in the meantime, it is exceedingly difficult to give an accurate statement of the number of our forces in the field. They may, in general terms, be stated at four hundred regiments of infantry, with a proportionate force of cavalry and artillery, the details of which will be shown by the report of the Secretary of War. I deem it proper to advert to the fact that the process of furloughs and reënlistment in progress for the last month had so far disorganized and weakened our forces as to impair our ability for successful defense; but I heartily congratulate you that this evil, which I had foreseen and was powerless to prevent, may now be said to be substantially at an end, and that we shall not again, during the war, be exposed to seeing our strength diminished by this fruitful cause of disaster – short enlistments.

The people of the Confederate States, being principally engaged in agricultural pursuits, were unprovided at the commencement of hostilities with ships, ship-yards, materials for ship-building, or skilled mechanics and seamen, in sufficient numbers to make the prompt creation of the navy a practicable task, even if the required appropriations had been made for the purpose. Notwithstanding our very limited resources, however, the report of the Secretary will exhibit to you a satisfactory progress in preparation, and a certainty of early completion of vessels of a number and class on which we may confidently rely for contesting the vaunted control of the enemy over our waters.

The financial system, devised by the wisdom of your predecessors, has proved adequate to supplying all the wants of the Government, notwithstanding the unexpected and very large increase of expenditures resulting from the great augmentation in the necessary means of defense. The report of the Secretary of the Treasury will exhibit the gratifying fact that we have no floating debt; that the credit of the Government is unimpaired, and that the total expenditure of the Government for the year has been, in round numbers, one hundred and seventy millions of dollars – less than one-third the sum wasted by the enemy in his vain effort to conquer us – less than the value of a single article of export – the cotton crop of the year.

The report of the Postmaster-General will show the condition of that department to be steadily improving – its revenue increasing, and already affording the assurance that it will be self-sustaining at the date required by the Constitution, while affording ample mail facilities for the people.

In the Department of Justice, which includes the Patent Office and Public Printing, some legislative provision will be required, which will be specifically stated in the report of the head of that department.

I invite the attention of Congress to the duty of organizing a Supreme Court of the Confederate States, in accordance with the mandate of the Constitution.

I refer you to my message communicated to the Provisional Congress in November last, for such further information touching the condition of public affairs, as it might be useful to lay before you; the short interval which has since elapsed not having produced any material changes in that condition, other than those to which reference has already been made.

In conclusion, I cordially welcome representatives who, recently chosen by the people, are fully imbued with their views and feelings, and can so ably advise me as to the needful provisions for the public service. I assure you of my hearty coöperation in all your efforts for the common welfare of the country.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

The message, not less than the inaugural address, was received with many evidences of public reanimation. The following extracts indicate the state of feeling in Richmond at this period:

THE PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE(From the Richmond Whig, Feb. 20, 1862.)

The President makes a candid and frank confession of our recent reverses. Very justly, he does not regard them as vital to our cause; but they will entail a long war upon us. That long war ensures our independence, and the ultimate confusion and ruin of the Yankees…

The Examiner, of the same date, in the opening paragraph of its leader, said:

The President’s Message is a manly and dignified document, but, like the inaugural, it contains not a solitary word indicating the plan or policy of the Government. Far from objecting to this characteristic, we think it eminently proper that the executive should keep its counsels from the public eye, and that the Congress should withdraw its deliberations from the public ear. What is wanted from the one is distinct and peremptory orders; and from the other, decisive and adequate provisions for the public safety. The duty of the country is unhesitating obedience; of the soldiers, the courage that prefers death in glory, like Jennings Wise…

CHAPTER XII

POPULAR DELUSIONS IN THE EARLY STAGES OF THE WAR – A FEW CONFLICTS AND SACRIFICES NOT SUFFICIENT – MORE POSITIVE RECOGNITION OF MR. DAVIS’ VIEWS – HIS CANDID AND PROPHETIC ANNOUNCEMENTS – MILITARY REFORMS – CONSCRIPTION LAW OF THE CONFEDERACY – THE PRESIDENT’S VIEWS AND COURSE AS TO THIS LAW – HIS CONSISTENT REGARD FOR CIVIL LIBERTY AND OPPOSITION TO CENTRALIZATION – RECOMMENDS CONSCRIPTION – BENEFICIAL RESULTS OF THE LAW – GENERAL LEE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, “UNDER THE PRESIDENT” – NATURE OF THE APPOINTMENT – FALSE IMPRESSIONS CORRECTED – MR. DAVIS’ CONFIDENCE IN LEE, DESPITE POPULAR CENSURE OF THE LATTER – CHANGES IN THE CABINET – MR. BENJAMIN’S MANAGEMENT OF THE WAR OFFICE – DIFFICULTIES OF THAT POSITION – THE CHARGE OF FAVORITISM AGAINST MR. DAVIS IN THE SELECTION OF HIS CABINET – HIS PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH THE VARIOUS MEMBERS OF HIS CABINET – ACTIVITY IN MILITARY OPERATIONS – THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI – BATTLE OF ELK HORN – OPERATIONS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI – GENERALS SIDNEY JOHNSTON AND BEAUREGARD – ISLAND NO. 10 – CONCENTRATION OF TROOPS BY THE CONFEDERATE AUTHORITIES – FAVORABLE SITUATION – SHILOH – A DISAPPOINTMENT – DEATH OF SIDNEY JOHNSTON – TRIBUTE OF PRESIDENT DAVIS – POPULAR VERDICT UPON THE BATTLE OF SHILOH – GENERALS BEAUREGARD, BRAGG, AND POLK ON THE BATTLE – THE PRESIDENT AGAIN CHARGED WITH “INJUSTICE” TO BEAUREGARD – THE CHARGE ANSWERED – FALL OF NEW ORLEANS – NAVAL BATTLE IN HAMPTON ROADS – NAVAL SUCCESSES OF THE ENEMY

We have briefly indicated the causes which now elevated the Southern people to a more intelligent appreciation of the nature and necessities of the struggle in which they were engaged. There was reason for the congratulation which President Davis experienced at the unmistakable evidences of the awakening of the public mind to the stern duties which, from the beginning, he had sedulously inculcated.