The Davis Government
It has never been explained why Jefferson Davis was chosen President of
the Confederacy. He did not seek the office and did not wish it. He
dreamed of high military command. As a study in the irony of fate,
Davis's career is made to the hand of the dramatist. An instinctive
soldier, he was driven by circumstances three times to renounce the
profession of arms for a less congenial civilian life. His final
renunciation, which proved to be of the nature of tragedy, was his
acceptance of the office of President. Indeed, why the office was given
to him seems a mystery. Rhett was a more logical candidate. And when
Rhett, early in the lobbying at Montgomery, was set aside as too much of
a radical, Toombs seemed for a time the certain choice of the majority.
The change to Davis came suddenly at the last moment. It was puzzling at
the time; it is puzzling still.
Rhett, though doubtless bitterly disappointed, bore himself with the
savoir faire of a great gentleman. At the inauguration, it was on
Rhett's arm that Davis leaned as he entered the hall of the Confederate
Congress. The night before, in a public address, Yancey had said that
the man and the hour were met. The story of the Confederacy is filled
with dramatic moments, but to the thoughtful observer few are more
dramatic than the conjunction of these three men in the inauguration of
the Confederate President. Beneath a surface of apparent unanimity they
carried, like concealed weapons, points of view that were in deadly
antagonism. This antagonism had not revealed itself hitherto. It was
destined to reveal itself almost immediately. It went so deep and spread
so far that unless we understand it, the Confederate story will be
unintelligible.
A strange fatality destined all three of these great men to despair.
Yancey, who was perhaps most directly answerable of the three for the
existence of the Confederacy, lost influence almost from the moment when
his dream became established. Davis was partly responsible, for he
promptly sent him out of the country on the bootless English mission.
Thereafter, until his death in 1863, Yancey was a waning, overshadowed
figure, steadily lapsing into the background. It may be that those
critics are right who say he was only an agitator. The day of the mere
agitator was gone. Yancey passed rapidly into futile but bitter
antagonism to Davis. In this attitude he was soon to be matched by
Rhett.
The discontent of the Rhett faction because their leader was not given
the portfolio of the State Department found immediate voice. But the
conclusion drawn by some that Rhett's subsequent course sprang from
personal vindictiveness is trifling. He was too large a personality, too
well defined an intellect, to be thus explained. Very probably Davis
made his first great blunder in failing to propitiate the Rhett faction.
And yet few things are more certain than that the two men, the two
factions which they symbolized, could not have formed a permanent
alliance. Had Rhett entered the Cabinet he could not have remained in it
consistently for any considerable time. The measures in which,
presently, the Administration showed its hand were measures in which
Rhett could not acquiesce. From the start he was predestined to his
eventual position--the great, unavailing genius of the opposition.
As to the comparative ignoring of these leaders of secession by the
Government which secession had created, it is often said that the
explanation is to be found in a generous as well as politic desire to
put in office the moderates and even the conservatives. Davis,
relatively, was a moderate. Stephens was a conservative. Many of the
most pronounced opponents of secession were given places in the public
service. Toombs, who received the portfolio of State, though a
secessionist, was conspicuously a moderate when compared with Rhett and
Yancey. The adroit Benjamin, who became Attorney-General, had few points
in common with the great extremists of Alabama and South Carolina.
However, the dictum that the personnel of the new Government was a
triumph for conservatism over radicalism signifies little. There was a
division among Southerners which scarcely any of them had realized
except briefly in the premature battle over secession in 1851. It was
the division between those who were conscious of the region as a whole
and those who were not. Explain it as you will, there was a moment just
after the secession movement succeeded when the South seemed to realize
itself as a whole, when it turned intuitively to those men who, as time
was to demonstrate, shared this realization. For the moment it turned
away from those others, however great their part in secession, who
lacked this sense of unity.
At this point, geography becomes essential. The South fell,
institutionally, into two grand divisions: one, with an old and firmly
established social order, where consciousness of the locality went back
to remote times; another, newly settled, where conditions were still
fluid, where that sense of the sacredness of local institutions had not
yet formed.
A typical community of the first-named class was South Carolina. Her
people had to a remarkable degree been rendered state-conscious partly
by their geographical neighbors, and partly by their long and
illustrious history, which had been interwoven with great European
interests during the colonial era and with great national interests
under the Republic. It is possible also that the Huguenots, though few
in numbers, had exercised upon the State a subtle and pervasive
influence through their intellectual power and their Latin sense for
institutions.
In South Carolina, too, a wealthy leisure class with a passion for
affairs had cultivated enthusiastically that fine art which is the pride
of all aristocratic societies, the service of the State as a profession
high and exclusive, free from vulgar taint. In South Carolina all things
conspired to uphold and strengthen the sense of the State as an object
of veneration, as something over and above the mere social order, as the
sacred embodiment of the ideals of the community. Thus it is fair to say
that what has animated the heroic little countries of the Old
World--Switzerland and Serbia and ever-glorious Belgium--with their
passion to remain themselves, animated South Carolina in 1861. Just as
Serbia was willing to fight to the death rather than merge her identity
in the mosaic of the Austrian Empire, so this little American community
saw nothing of happiness in any future that did not secure its virtual
independence.
Typical of the newer order in the South was the community that formed
the President of the Confederacy. In the history of Mississippi previous
to the war there are six great names--Jacob Thompson, John A. Quitman,
Henry S. Foote, Robert J. Walker, Sergeant S. Prentiss, and Jefferson
Davis. Not one of them was born in the State. Thompson was born in North
Carolina; Quitman in New York; Foote in Virginia; Walker in
Pennsylvania; Prentiss in Maine; Davis in Kentucky. In 1861 the State
was but forty-four years old, younger than its most illustrious sons--if
the paradox may be permitted. How could they think of it as an entity
existing in itself, antedating not only themselves but their traditions,
circumscribing them with its all-embracing, indisputable reality? These
men spoke the language of state rights. It is true that in politics,
combating the North, they used the political philosophy taught them by
South Carolina. But it was a mental weapon in political debate; it was
not for them an emotional fact.
And yet these men of the Southwest had an ideal of their own as vivid
and as binding as the state ideal of the men of the eastern coast.
Though half their leaders were born in the North, the people themselves
were overwhelmingly Southern. From all the older States, all round the
huge crescent which swung around from Kentucky coastwise to Florida,
immigration in the twenties and thirties had poured into Mississippi.
Consequently the new community presented a composite picture of the
whole South, and like all composite pictures it emphasized only the
factors common to all its parts. What all the South had in common, what
made a man a Southerner in the general sense--in distinction from a
Northerner on the one hand, or a Virginian, Carolinian, Georgian, on the
other--could have been observed with clearness in Mississippi, just
before the war, as nowhere else. Therefore, the fulfillment of the ideal
of Southern life in general terms was the vision of things hoped for by
the new men of the Southwest. The features of that vision were common to
them all--country life, broad acres, generous hospitality, an
aristocratic system. The temperaments of these men were sufficiently
buoyant to enable them to apprehend this ideal even before it had
materialized. Their romantic minds could see the gold at the end of the
rainbow. Theirs was not the pride of administering a well-ordered,
inherited system, but the joy of building a new system, in their minds
wholly elastic, to be sure, but still inspired by that old system.
What may be called the sense of Southern nationality as opposed to the
sense of state rights, strictly speaking, distinguished this brilliant
young community of the Southwest. In that community Davis spent the
years that appear to have been the most impressionable of his life.
Belonging to a "new" family just emerging into wealth, he began life as
a West Pointer and saw gallant service as a youth on the frontier;
resigned from the army to pursue a romantic attachment; came home to
lead the life of a wealthy planter and receive the impress of
Mississippi; made his entry into politics, still a soldier at heart,
with the philosophy of state rights on his lips, but in his heart that
sense of the Southern people as a new nation, which needed only the
occasion to make it the relentless enemy of the rights of the individual
Southern States. Add together the instinctive military point of view and
this Southern nationalism that even in 1861 had scarcely revealed
itself; join with these a fearless and haughty spirit, proud to the
verge of arrogance, but perfectly devoted, perfectly sincere; and you
have the main lines of the political character of Davis when he became
President. It may be that as he went forward in his great undertaking,
as antagonisms developed, as Rhett and others turned against him, Davis
hardened. He lost whatever comprehension he once had of the Rhett type.
Seeking to weld into one irresistible unit all the military power of the
South, he became at last in the eyes of his opponents a monster, while
to him, more and more positively, the others became mere dreamers.
It took about a year for this irrepressible conflict within the
Confederacy to reveal itself. During the twelve months following Davis's
election as provisional President, he dominated the situation, though
the Charleston Mercury, the Rhett organ, found opportunities to be
sharply critical of the President. He assembled armies; he initiated
heroic efforts to make up for the handicap of the South in the
manufacture of munitions and succeeded in starting a number of munition
plants; though powerless to prevent the establishment of the blockade,
he was able during that first year to keep in touch with Europe, to
start out Confederate privateers upon the high seas, and to import a
considerable quantity of arms and supplies. At the close of the year the
Confederate armies were approaching general efficiency, for all their
enormous handicap, almost if not quite as rapidly as were the Union
armies. And the one great event of the year on land, the first battle of
Manassas, or Bull Run, was a signal Confederate victory.
To be sure Davis was severely criticized in some quarters for not
adopting an aggressive policy. The Confederate Government, whether
wisely or foolishly, had not taken the people into its confidence and
the lack of munitions was not generally appreciated. The easy popular
cries were all sounded: "We are standing still!" "The country is being
invaded!" "The President is a do-nothing!" From the coast regions
especially, where the blockade was felt in all its severity, the outcry
was loud.
Nevertheless, the South in the main was content with the Administration
during most of the first year. In November, when the general elections
were held, Davis was chosen without opposition as the first regular
Confederate President for six years, and Stephens became the
Vice-President. The election was followed by an important change in the
Southern Cabinet. Benjamin became Secretary of War, in succession to the
first War Secretary, Leroy P. Walker. Toombs had already left the
Confederate Cabinet. Complaining that Davis degraded him to the level of
a mere clerk, he had withdrawn the previous July. His successor in the
State Department was R. M. T. Hunter of Virginia, who remained in office
until February, 1862, when his removal to the Confederate Senate opened
the way for a further advancement of Benjamin.
Richmond, which had been designated as the capital soon after the
secession of Virginia, was the scene of the inauguration, on February
22, 1862. Although the weather proved bleak and rainy, an immense crowd
gathered around the Washington monument, in Capitol Square, to listen to
the inaugural address. By this time the confidence in the Government,
which was felt generally at the time of the election, had suffered a
shock. Foreign affairs were not progressing satisfactorily. Though
England had accorded to the Confederacy the status of a belligerent,
this was poor consolation for her refusal to make full recognition of
the new Government as an independent power. Dread of internal distress
was increasing. Gold commanded a premium of fifty per cent. Disorder was
a feature of the life in the cities. It was known that several recent
military events had been victories for the Federals. A rumor was abroad
that some great disaster had taken place in Tennessee. The crowd
listened anxiously to hear the rumor denied by the President. But it was
not denied. The tense listeners noted two sentences which formed an
admission that the situation was grave: "A million 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."
Behind these carefully guarded words lay serious alarm, not only with
regard to the operations at the front but as to the composition of the
army. It had been raised under various laws and its portions were
subject to conflicting classifications; it was partly a group of state
armies, partly a single Confederate army. None of its members had
enlisted for long terms. Many enlistments would expire early in 1862.
The fears of the Confederate Administration with regard to this matter,
together with its alarm about the events at the front, were expressed by
Davis in a frank message to the Southern Congress, three days later. "I
have hoped," said he, "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.... The hope is still entertained
that our reported losses at Fort Donelson have been greatly
exaggerated...." He went on to condemn the policy of enlistments for
short terms, "against which," said he, "I have steadily contended"; and
he enlarged upon the danger that even patriotic men, who intended to
reënlist, might go home to put their affairs in order and that thus, at
a critical moment, the army might be seriously reduced. The accompanying
report of the Confederate Secretary of War showed a total in the army of
340,250 men. This was an inadequate force with which to meet the great
hosts which were being organized against it in the North. To permit the
slightest reduction of the army at that moment seemed to the Southern
President suicidal.
But Davis waited some time longer before proposing to the Confederate
Congress the adoption of conscription. Meanwhile, the details of two
great reverses, the loss of Roanoke Island and the loss of Fort
Donelson, became generally known. Apprehension gathered strength.
Newspapers began to discuss conscription as something inevitable. At
last, on March 28, 1862, Davis sent a message to the Confederate
Congress advising the conscription of all white males between the ages
of eighteen and thirty-five. For this suggestion Congress was ripe, and
the first Conscription Act of the Confederacy was signed by the
President on the 16th of April. The age of eligibility was fixed as
Davis had advised; the term of service was to be three years; every one
then in service was to be retained in service during three years from
the date of his original enlistment.
This statute may be thought of as a great victory on the part of the
Administration. It was the climax of a policy of centralization in the
military establishment to which Davis had committed himself by the veto,
in January, of "A bill to authorize the Secretary of War to receive into
the service of the Confederate States a regiment of volunteers for the
protection of the frontier of Texas." This regiment was to be under the
control of the Governor of the State. In refusing to accept such troops,
Davis laid down the main proposition upon which he stood as military
executive to the end of the war, a proposition which immediately set
debate raging: "Unity and cooperation by the troops of all the States
are indispensable to success, and I must view with regret this as well
as all other indications of a purpose to divide the power of States by
dividing the means to be employed in efforts to carry on separate
operations."
In these military measures of the early months of 1862 Davis's purpose
became clear. He was bent upon instituting a strong government, able to
push the war through, and careless of the niceties of constitutional law
or of the exact prerogatives of the States. His position was expressed
in the course of the year by a Virginia newspaper: "It will be time
enough to distract the councils of the State about imaginary violations
of constitutional law by the supreme government when our independence is
achieved, established, and acknowledged. It will not be until then that
the sovereignty of the States will be a reality." But there were many
Southerners who could not accept this point of view. The Mercury was
sharply critical of the veto of the Texas Regiment Bill. In the interval
between the Texas veto and the passing of the Conscription Act, the
state convention of North Carolina demanded the return of North Carolina
volunteers for the defense of their own State. No sooner was the
Conscription Act passed than its constitutionality was attacked. As the
Confederacy had no Supreme Court, the question came up before state
courts. One after another, several state supreme courts pronounced the
act constitutional and in most of the States the constitutional issue
was gradually allowed to lapse.
Nevertheless, Davis had opened Pandora's box. The clash between State
and Confederate authority had begun. An opposition party began to form.
In this first stage of its definite existence, the opposition made an
interesting attempt to control the Cabinet. Secretary Benjamin, though
greatly trusted by the President, seems never to have been a popular
minister. Congress attempted to load upon Benjamin the blame for Roanoke
Island and Fort Donelson. In the House a motion was introduced to the
effect that Benjamin had "not the confidence of the people of the
Confederate States nor of the army ... and that we most respectfully
request his retirement" from the office of Secretary of War. Friends of
the Administration tabled the motion. Davis extricated his friend by
taking advantage of Hunter's retirement and promoting Benjamin to the
State Department. A month later a congressional committee appointed to
investigate the affair of Roanoke Island exonerated the officer in
command and laid the blame on his superiors, including "the late
Secretary of War."
With Benjamin safe in the Department of State, with the majority in the
Confederate Congress still fairly manageable, with the Conscription Act
in force, Davis seemed to be strong enough in the spring of 1862 to
ignore the gathering opposition. And yet there was another measure,
second only in the President's eyes to the Conscription Act, that was to
breed trouble. This was the first of the series of acts empowering him
to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. Under this act he
was permitted to set up martial law in any district threatened with
invasion. The cause of this drastic measure was the confusion and the
general demoralization that existed wherever the close approach of the
enemy created a situation too complex for the ordinary civil
authorities. Davis made use of the power thus given to him and
proclaimed martial law in Richmond, in Norfolk, in parts of South
Carolina, and elsewhere. It was on Richmond that the hand of the
Administration fell heaviest. The capital was the center of a great
camp; its sudden and vast increase in population had been the signal for
all the criminal class near and far to hurry thither in the hope of a
new field of spoliation; to deal with this immense human congestion, the
local police were powerless; every variety of abominable contrivance to
entrap and debauch men for a price was in brazen operation. The first
care of the Government under the new law was the cleansing of the
capital. General John H. Winder, appointed military governor, did the
job with thoroughness. He closed the barrooms, disarmed the populace,
and for the time at least swept the city clean of criminals. The
Administration also made certain political arrests, and even imprisoned
some extreme opponents of the Government for "offenses not enumerated
and not cognizable under the regular process of law." Such arrests gave
the enemies of the Administration another handle against it. As we shall
see later, the use that Davis made of martial law was distorted by a
thousand fault-finders and was made the basis of the charge that the
President was aiming at absolute power.
At the moment, however, Davis was master of the situation. The six
months following April 1, 1862, were doubtless, from his own point of
view, the most satisfactory part of his career as Confederate President.
These months were indeed filled with peril. There was a time when
McClellan's advance up the Peninsula appeared so threatening that the
archives of the Government were packed on railway cars prepared for
immediate removal should evacuation be necessary. There were the other
great disasters during that year, including the loss of New Orleans. The
President himself experienced a profound personal sorrow in the death of
his friend, Albert Sidney Johnston, in the bloody fight at Shiloh. It
was in the midst of this time that tried men's souls that the Richmond
Examiner achieved an unenvied immortality for one of its articles on the
Administration. At a moment when nothing should have been said to
discredit in any way the struggling Government, it described Davis as
weak with fear telling his beads in a corner of St. Paul's Church. This
paper, along with the Charleston Mercury, led the Opposition. Throughout
Confederate history these two, which were very ably edited, did the
thinking for the enemies of Davis. We shall meet them time and again.
A true picture of Davis would have shown the President resolute and
resourceful, at perhaps the height of his powers. He recruited and
supplied the armies; he fortified Richmond; he sustained the great
captain whom he had placed in command while McClellan was at the gates.
When the tide had turned and the Army of the Potomac sullenly withdrew,
baffled, there occurred the one brief space in Confederate history that
was pure sunshine. In this period took place the splendid victory of
Second Manassas. The strong military policy of the Administration had
given the Confederacy powerful armies. Lee had inspired them with
victory. This period of buoyant hope culminated in the great offensive
design which followed Second Manassas. It was known that the Northern
people, or a large part of them, had suffered a reaction; the tide was
setting strong against the Lincoln Government; in the autumn, the
Northern elections would be held. To influence those elections and at
the same time to drive the Northern armies back into their own section;
to draw Maryland and Kentucky into the Confederate States; to fall upon
the invaders in the Southwest and recover the lower Mississippi--to
accomplish all these results was the confident expectation of the
President and his advisers as they planned their great triple offensive
in August, 1862. Lee was to invade Maryland; Bragg was to invade
Kentucky; Van Dorn was to break the hold of the Federals in the
Southwest. If there is one moment that is to be considered the climax of
Davis's career, the high-water mark of Confederate hope, it was the
moment of joyous expectation when the triple offensive was launched,
when Lee's army, on a brilliant autumn day, crossed the Potomac, singing
Maryland, my Maryland.