Here's Davis on the Senate floor, January 10, 1861:
If you will but allow us to separate from you peaceably, since we cannot live peaceably together, to leave with the rights that we had before we were united, since we cannot enjoy them in the Union, then there are many relations which may still subsist between us, drawn from the associations of our struggles from the revolutionary era to the present day, which may be beneficial to you as well as to us.
I think, but am not sure, that Davis went back to Alabama for a period shortly before that speech and tried to talk Alabama politicians out of secession. If true, he was unsuccessful.
The South held out hope and were working for a peaceful separation until early April 1861 when news of northern warship preparations and sailings to unknown Southern destinations became known. The Southern Commissioners in Washington were mislead by words of cabinet member Seward in late March that Fort Sumter would be evacuated. Governor Pickens of South Carolina was similarly misled about the same time by Ward Hill Lamon, Lincoln's personal messenger to the Governor. Once the fleet sailed, the Commissioners called the words of the Lincoln Administration about evacuating Sumter "gross perfidy."
Before the attack on Sumter, the New York Times wondered why Davis and Beauregard had not already attacked Sumter before the fleet sailed south. The following was published by the NYT on April 12. I guess they couldn't or wouldn't see that the South had been holding out for peace until it was clear that a northern fleet was coming.
Why the Southern Commander, be he JEFFERSON DAVIS or Gen. BEAUREGARD, [their caps] has delayed pouring on Sumpter [sic -- tisk, tisk, NYT] his full force, and crushing it beneath an iron hail, if he could; why he has waited until, instead of concentrating his fire in security on one small point, he now has to defend a long straggling line [ten miles of shoreline], from a powerful fleet, it is impossible to tell. The reason may have been political; it may have been that there was not the vaunted readiness; it may have been incompetency; and it is not impossible that when the yawning abyss opened before them with all its horror, they may have lacked the insane courage required for the final leap.
Lincoln had to know that fighting would break out if he sent the fleet. I wonder what would have occurred if Davis had kept the fort supplied with food and instead let Lincoln keep his promise of collecting tariffs on goods intended for Southern ports, an act of war if Lincoln were interdicting foreign ships.
Davis was one of those politicians who talked one way in Washington and the North and another way at home. Maybe all politicians are more or less like that, and if their doubletalk brings good results for the country we forgive them, but Davis's duplicity had the worst possible results.
Davis showed the same duplicity and inability to admit what he was actually doing in his battles within his Democratic Party. Davis couldn't bring himself to admit that his actions were splitting the party and dooming it to defeat.
You can see the same pattern in the weeks leading up to the beginning of war. On March 6, 1861, over a month before firing on Fort Sumter, Davis and the Confederate Congress called for an army of 100,000 volunteers, a force much larger than the US Army. Was that the action of a man who wanted peace?
In his last speech in Congress in January, 1861, Davis had attacked Buchanan for not surrendering Sumter. He had months afterwards to figure out what to do if the United States refused to relinquish the fort, as he had every reason to expect that they wouldn't. And what did he come up with? Nothing, except force. Almost as if he wanted the war to solidify his government's position.