The Life of Jefferson Davis

by Frank H. Alfriend

The Chicago platform was more than a menace to the South; it was a defiance of law, a declaration of war upon the Constitution. The election of Lincoln was both a legal and moral severance of the bonds of Union. While he received the united vote of the North, save New Jersey, he did not receive one electoral vote from the South. His shaping of his administration was consistent with the character of the party which elected him. All his constitutional advisers were Northern men or Southern Abolitionists; social outlaws in their own section, in consequence of their notorious personal depravity, and infidelity to their immediate fellow-citizens. Of like character were the subordinate appointments of the Federal Government in Southern communities.

Nor was there reason to doubt the policy of the Government under its new management. Mr. Lincoln had been sufficiently communicative of his own bitter hostility to Southern institutions. In fact, with much show of justice, his admirers claimed for him the original suggestion of the idea of an “irrepressible conflict,” afterwards so elaborately pronounced by William H. Seward. Public announcements, from prominent speakers of the successful party, amply revealed the feast to which the South was invited. Wendell Phillips, the most able, eloquent, and sagacious of the original Abolitionists, thus pointedly defined the situation: “No man has a right to be surprised at this state of things. It is just what we have attempted to bring about. It is the first sectional party ever organized in this country. It does not know its own face, and calls itself national; but it is not national—it is sectional. The Republican party is a party of the North pledged against the South.”

Such was the complexion to which political affairs were brought by the election of Abraham Lincoln. There remained hardly a hope, even for future security or domestic tranquillity to the South, except in withdrawal from an association, in which she had become an inferior and an outcast—an object of oppression, outrage, and contumely. From a relentless Abolition majority she could expect no favors; and the Northern Democracy, so long her ally, for common purposes of party, had cowered before the storm of fanaticism, and repudiated the first demand made upon its fidelity to principle.

Congress assembled on the first Monday of December, 1860, a few weeks subsequent to the Presidential election. Never had that body met under circumstances of such gravity. Universal foreboding of peril to the nation was mingled with hope of such action, as would avert the impending calamities of disunion and civil war. There were few indications, at the opening of the session, of conciliatory sentiments; from the representatives of both sections came open defiance, and Northern members of both houses were more than ever bold in the utterance of insult and menace. Before the opening of the session, President Buchanan received from Mr. Davis the most satisfactory assurances of his coöperation with the administration in a pacific policy, having for its object the settlement of the national difficulties upon terms promotive of the peace of the country, and assuring the security of the South.[16] To such a settlement the efforts of Mr. Davis were addressed so long as there was the slightest ground for the indulgence of hope.

This session of Congress, the last which was held previous to the commencement of civil war, is chiefly interesting as the historical record of those patriotic efforts which were made to save the Union, and as furnishing incontestible proof of the guilt of those who, by their persistent refusal of all conciliatory propositions, are justly responsible for the calamities which were to befall the country. Happily for the reputation of Mr. Davis, the proof is authentic and conclusive in his favor upon these important questions. There is no portion of his career in which statesmanship, patriotism, and a noble appreciation of the claims of humanity shine forth more conspicuously. So overwhelming is the evidence that, in these last days of the Union, he was false to none of these high considerations, that the most mendacious assailants of himself and the cause he lately represented have not yet ventured to call it in question.

A disposition is frequently evinced to plead for him immunity from the responsibility of his position, as the leader of the Confederate movement, upon the score of his consistent Unionism, manifested in the prevailing conservatism of his course as a politician. He needs no such palliation. His devotion to the Union of the American fathers was as unquestionable as was that of Washington. His patriotism was illustrated by every mode of exemplification in the service of country. To substantiate his attachment to that association of States, designed by the fathers, sublime in its objects of mutual fidelity, generous sympathies, justice, and equality, no elaborate statement is required, nor could formal vindication strengthen its defenses.[17] He never arrayed himself against such a Union, but, abhorring that perverted instrument of sectional aggression, which the Government had become, he did accompany and lead his fellow-citizens in their exercise of the highest privilege of freemen.

He was always prepared to follow the principles of States’ Rights to their logical consequences, and was yet consistent in his attachment to the Union. Thus he was a firm believer in the absolute sovereignty of the States, and of the enjoyment, by the States, of all the attributes of sovereignty, including, necessarily, the right of secession. He had never urged the expediency of secession, though, upon repeated occasions, he had foreshadowed its probable necessity in the future, as the only remedy remaining to the South in certain contingencies. In the Senate, in 1850, he thus alluded to the possibility of a successful organization of a sectional party: “The danger is one of our own times, and it is that sectional division of the people which has created the necessity of looking to the question of the balance of power, and which carries with it, when disturbed, the danger of disunion.”

In 1859, again, he proclaimed, in unequivocal terms, his course in the event of the success of a party indorsing the Rochester pronunciamento of Mr. Seward. Yet his course, subsequent to the election of Mr. Lincoln, was directed entirely in the interest of moderation. Having little hope of concession from the enemies of the South, in the moment of their overwhelming victory, he yet anxiously, earnestly entered that last struggle for the Constitution, before it passed into the keeping of iconoclasts, who were pledged to its destruction.

His zeal in behalf of pacification was actuated by considerations of humanity, no less ennobling than his impulse of disinterested patriotism. Regarding a long and bloody war as the certain result of dissolution, he anxiously sought to avert that calamitous result, and stood pledged to the acceptance of any basis of settlement which should guarantee the safety and honor of the South. At no time, however, did he advocate submission. His language in the Senate is explicit. Speaking of the secession of Mississippi, he said: “I, however, may be permitted to say, that I do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them then that, if the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted.”

During the session, numerous efforts at compromise were made, in every instance emanating from Southern Representatives or Northern Democrats, the dominant party of the North declining all tenders of pacification, and offering no terms of conciliation in return. It is unnecessary to trace the progress of these abortive efforts, which, in the main, received the support of feeble minorities, and had, from their inception, no prospect of adoption.