The Life of Jefferson Davis

A congressional investigating committee censured Mr. Benjamin and General Huger as responsible for the capture of Roanoke Island and its garrison. The latter affair was indeed a disaster not to be lightly palliated, and was one of those inexplicable mishaps, which, upon retrospection, we see should have been avoided, though it is at least doubtful who is justly censurable. It is, however, only just to state that no view of the Roanoke Island disaster has ever been presented to the writer, which did not acquit General Wise of all blame. His exculpation was complete before every tribunal of opinion.

Whatever may have been the real merit of these issues made against Secretaries Mallory and Benjamin, it is very certain that those two gentlemen continued to be the objects of marked disfavor from those members of Congress, and that portion of the Richmond press known to be hostile to the administration of Mr. Davis. Popular prejudice is proverbially unreasoning, and it was indeed singular to note how promptly the public echoed the assaults of the hostile press against these officials, upon subsequent occasions, when they were held accountable for disasters with which they had no possible connection.[43 - The friends of Mr. Mallory, in illustration of this unreasoning prejudice, were accustomed to declare that, “were a Confederate vessel to sink in a storm, in the middle of the ocean, the Richmond Examiner and Mr. Foote would advocate the censure of the Secretary of the Navy, as responsible for her loss.”]

This period of Confederate misfortunes gave the first verification of a fact which afterward had frequent illustration, that the resolution of the South, so indomitable in actual contest, staggered under the weight of reverses. The history of the war was a record of the variations of the Southern mind between extreme elation and immoderate depression. Extravagant exultation over success, and immoderate despondency over disaster, usually followed each other in prompt succession. Overestimating, in many instances, the importance of its own victories, the South quite as frequently exaggerated the value of those won by the enemy. There was thus a constant departure from the middle ground of dispassionate judgment, which would have accurately measured the real situation; making available its opportunities, by a vigorous prosecution of advantage, and overcoming difficulties by energetic preparation.

But this despondency happily gave place to renewed determination, as the success of the enemy brought him nearer the homes of the South, and made more imminent the evils of subjugation. A grand and noble popular reanimation was the response to the renewed vigor and resolution of the Government.

When the Confederate Government was organized at Montgomery, the operation of the provisional constitution was limited to the period of one year, to be superseded by the permanent government. No material alteration of the political organism was found necessary, nor was there any change in the personnel of the administration – Mr. Davis having been unanimously chosen President at the election in November, and retaining his administration as it existed at the close of the functions of the provisional constitution. Though the change was thus merely nominal, the occasion was replete with historic interest to the people whose liberties were involved in the fate of the government, now declared “permanent.” It was, indeed, an assumption of a new character – a declaration, with renewed emphasis, of the high and peerless enterprise of independent national existence; an introduction to a future, promising a speedy fulfillment of inestimable blessings or “woes unnumbered.”

On the 18th of February, 1862, the first Congress, under the permanent constitution of the Confederate States, assembled in the capitol at Richmond. On the 22d occurred the ceremony of the inauguration of President Davis.

To the citizens of Richmond and others who were spectators, the scene in Capitol Square, on that memorable morning, was marked by gloomy surroundings, the recollection of which recalls, with sad interest, suggestive omens, which then seemed to betoken the adverse fate of the Confederacy. The season was one of unusual rigor, and the preceding month of public calamity and distress had been fitly commemorated by a protracted series of dark and cheerless days. Never, within the recollection of the writer, had there been a day in Richmond so severe, uncomfortable, and gloomy, as the day appointed for the ceremony of inauguration. For days previous heavy clouds had foreshadowed the rain, which fell continuously during the preceding night, and which seemed to increase in volume on the morning of the ceremony. The occasion was in singular contrast with that which, a year previous, had witnessed the installment of the provisional government – upon a day whose genial sunshine seemed prophetic of a bright future for the infant power then launched upon its voyage.

But however wanting in composure may have been the public mind, and whatever the perils of the situation, the voice of their twice-chosen chief quickly infused into the heart of the people, that unabated zeal and unconquerable resolution, with which he proclaimed himself devoted anew to the deliverance of his country. The inaugural address was a noble and inspiring appeal to the patriotism of the land. Its eloquent, candid, and patriotic tone won all hearts; and even the unfriendly press and politicians accorded commendation to the dignity and candor with which the President avowed his official responsibility; the manly frankness with which he defended departments of the government unjustly assailed; and the assuring, defiant courage, with which he invited all classes of his countrymen to join him in the supreme sacrifice, should it become necessary.

The inaugural ceremonies were as simple and appropriate as those witnessed at Montgomery a year previous. The members of the Confederate Senate and House of Representatives, with the members of the Virginia Legislature, awaited in the hall of the House of Delegates the arrival of the President. In consequence of the limited capacity of the hall, comparatively few spectators – a majority of them ladies – witnessed the proceedings there. Immediately fronting the chair of the speaker were the ladies of Mr. Davis’ household, attended by relatives and friends. In close proximity were members of the cabinet.

A contemporary account thus mentions this scene: “It was a grave and great assemblage. Time-honored men were there, who had witnessed ceremony after ceremony of inauguration in the palmiest days of the old confederation; those who had been at the inauguration of the iron-willed Jackson; men who, in their fiery Southern ardor, had thrown down the gauntlet of defiance in the halls of Federal legislation, and in the face of the enemy avowed their determination to be free; and finally witnessed the enthroning of a republican despot in their country’s chair of state. All were there; and silent tears were seen coursing down the cheeks of gray-haired men, while the determined will stood out in every feature.”

The appearance of the President was singularly imposing, though there were visible traces of his profound emotion, and a pallor, painful to look upon, reminded the spectator of his recent severe indisposition. His dress was a plain citizen’s suit of black. Mr. Hunter, of Virginia, temporary President of the Confederate Senate, occupied the right of the platform; Mr. Bocock, Speaker of the House of Representatives, the left. When President Davis, accompanied by Mr. Orr, of South Carolina, Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, on the part of the Senate, reached the hall and passed to the chair of the Speaker, subdued applause, becoming the place and the occasion, greeted him. A short time sufficed to carry into effect the previously arranged programme, and the distinguished procession moved to the Washington monument, where a stand was prepared for the occasion.

Hon. James Lyons, of Virginia, Chairman of the House Committee of Arrangements, called the assemblage to order, and an eloquent and appropriate prayer was offered by Bishop Johns, of the Diocese of Virginia. The President, having received a most enthusiastic welcome from the assemblage, with a clear and measured accent, delivered his inaugural address:

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.