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Davis was chosen partly because he was a well-known and experienced moderate who had served in a president's cabinet. In meetings of his own Mississippi legislature, Davis had argued against secession, but when a majority of the delegates opposed him, he gave in.[62] Davis wanted to serve as a general in the Confederate States Army and not as the president, but accepted the role for which he had been chosen.[63] Alexander Stephens was chosen as Vice President. On November 6, 1861, Davis was elected Confederate States President without opposition. He was inaugurated on February 22, 1862. Several forts in Confederate territory remained in Union hands. Davis sent a commission to Washington with an offer to pay for any federal property on Southern soil, as well as the Southern portion of the national debt. Lincoln refused. Informal discussions did take place with Secretary of State William Seward through Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell, an Alabamian who had not yet resigned; Seward hinted that Fort Sumter would be evacuated, but nothing definite was said.[64]

From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Davis

Sources annoted at bottom.

Davis sent a commission to Washington with an offer to pay for any federal property on Southern soil, as well as the Southern portion of the national debt.

A common claim but inaccurate. Read the letter that Davis sent to Lincoln introducing the commissioners and you will see there is no offer to pay for anything. No offer to negotiate anything that Davis didn't want to talk about. Nothing really but an ultimatum that Lincoln surrender to rebel demands and recognize Confederate independence.

But even if there had been such an offer, isn't that an admission that the Southern actions of seizing property and walking away from debt had been wrong to begin with?

Oh, and the Wiki footnote references the wrong page. It's actually pages 336-337.

Davis was a “moderate” only in that he was not a fire-breather. But in 1850 he was in the forefront of secession. He dominated the administration of the feckless doughface, Franklin Pierce, and did what he could to make sure that the Army was safe for the South. It is true that he would rather have been one of the Virginia generals rather than in the Richmond white house, but everything he did was for “the Cause.”

exit82 quoting wiki article: "Davis sent a commission to Washington with an offer to pay for any federal property on Southern soil, as well as the Southern portion of the national debt.
Lincoln refused.
Informal discussions did take place with Secretary of State William Seward through Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell, an Alabamian who had not yet resigned..."

In early 1861, neither outgoing Democrat President Buchanan nor incoming Republican Lincoln ever met directly with Confederate representatives.
In this particular case, Davis' emissaries didn't meet either Lincoln or Secretary of State Seward.
Instead they met a southern-born US Supreme Court Justice who was soon to himself join the Confederacy.
This justice talked to Seward, who lead him to believe than Lincoln planned to surrender Fort Sumter, South Carolina.

Lincoln's view, as he stated publicly, was that any instructions to him regarding secession must come from Congress, and that's who Davis' emissaries should address.

There's no record of offers of payment for any seized Federal properties, and the whole atmosphere was one of explicit threat of violence -- if Lincoln did not surrender Fort Sumter, it would be seized by military assault.

The key issue here is: what is the proper Constitutional method to secede, and Lincoln's answer then, as is ours today, was -- constitutional secession must be authorized by Congress.