Davis was an enlightened man. I know people will scream "but he was a slave owner!!!". True, he was. But he set up a system whereby his slaves would judge any others accused of an offense before any punishment was handed down. He reserved for himself the right to lesson any punishment decided upon by the jury but never to increase it. He allowed his slaves to earn money for side jobs which they could keep for themselves. He had long advocated emancipation for slaves and their families in exchange for military service and he had long advocated emancipation in exchange for British/French recognition both of which he eventually go the Confederate Congress to agree to. He always treated Blacks with respect and they knew it and in turn he was well regarded by them. Not that you will read this in any of the history textbooks in the government schools or see it on the so-called "history" channel or PBS.
Davis was an enlightened man. I know people will scream "but he was a slave owner!!!". True, he was. But he set up a system whereby his slaves would judge any others accused of an offense before any punishment was handed down. He reserved for himself the right to lesson any punishment decided upon by the jury but never to increase it. He allowed his slaves to earn money for side jobs which they could keep for themselves.
Your last point underscores the discontent of Blacks who enlisted with a promise of equal pay, a promise upon which the government reneged. Whether free or slave, many had a source of income; and they had a family that it helped to provide for. When they enlisted and received about half pay, it directly affected their family left behind.
For some reason, or unreason, some folks who imagine they are generals in the civil war, refuse to accept any consideration of any possibility that slave and owner could share a human connection. They refuse to consider human nature. The more intimate the relationship, the more human connection is made. Where the relationship is like that of the employee and the person issuing paychecks for a mega-conglomerate corporation, not so much.
Congressional Globe, 36th Cong., 1st Sess., May 17, 1860, colloquy with Sen. Stephen Douglas pp. 2143-2156, Sen. Jefferson Davis quote at pp. 2150-2151.
There is a relation belonging to this species of property, not connected with the apprentice, not connected with the hired man, which awakens whatever there is of kindness or of nobility of soul in the heart of him who owns it; and this can only be alienated, can only be obscured or destroyed, by collecting this species of property into such masses that the owner himself becomes ignorant of the individuals who compose it. In the relation, however, which can exist in the northwestern Territories, the mere domestic connection of one, two, or, at most, half a dozen servants in a family, associating with the children as they grow up, attending upon age as it declines, there can be nothing against which either philanthropy or humanity can make an appeal. Not even the emancipationist could raise his voice, for this is the high road and the open gate for the emancipation of every one who may thus be taken to the frontier.
Grant, Lincoln, and the Freedmen, Reminiscences if the Civil War, with Special Reference to The Work for the Contrabands and Freedmen of the Mississippi Valley, by John Eaton, Ph.D., LL.D., Brigadier-General; General Superintendant of Freedmen, Department of the Tennessee; Assistant Commissioner of Freedmen, Freedmen's Bureau; Commissioner of Education of the United States; U.S. Superintendent of schools, Porto Rico; in collaboration with Ethel Osgood Mason, Longmans, Green, and Co., 91 abd 93 Fifth Avenue, New York, London, Bombay, and Calcutta, 1907, p. 165-66:
Available at Googlebooks.
Late in the season—in November and December, 1864, — the Freedmen’s Department was restored to full control over the camps and plantations on President’s Island and Palmyra or Davis Bend. Both these points had been originally occupied at the suggestion of General Grant, and were among the most successful of our enterprises for the Negroes. With the expansion of the lessee system, private interests were allowed to displace the interests of the Negroes whom we had established there under the protection of the Government, but orders issued by General N. J. T. Dana, upon whose sympathetic and intelligent co-operation my officers could always rely, restored to us the full control of these lands. The efforts of the freedmen on Davis Bend were particularly encouraging, and this property, under Colonel Thomas’s able direction, became in reality the “Negro Paradise” that General Grant had urged us to make of it. Early in 1865 a system was adopted for their government in which the freedmen took a considerable part. The Bend was divided into districts, each having a sheriff and judge appointed from among the more reliable and intelligent colored men. A general oversight of the proceedings was maintained by our officer in charge, who confirmed or modified the findings of the court. The shrewdness of the colored judges was very remarkable, though it was sometimes necessary.to decrease the severity of the punishments they proposed. Fines and penal service on the Home Farm were the usual sentences imposed. Petty theft, and idleness, were the most frequent causes of trouble, but my officers were able to report that exposed property was as safe on Davis Bend as it would be anywhere. The community distinctly demonstrated the capacity of the Negro to take care of himself and exercise under honest and competent direction the functions of self-government.
I'll bet you didn't know that the Freedman's Bureau saw the Black trial system and took credit for it. Bless their heart!
For a 21-page article on Davis, including more details about the quote we have discussed, and the black trial system, see:
Jefferson Davis, the Negroes and the Negro Problem
Walter L. Fleming
The Sewanee Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Oct., 1908), pp. 407-427
Longmans, Green & Co., 91-93 Fifth Avenue, New York; London and Bombay; Printed at The University Press of Sewanee Tennessee
Volume 16 available at Googlebooks. Search "the sewanee review 1908"
Fleming at page 411:
After the death of Pemberton in 1852 Davis employed white overseers, some of whom did not approve of his system of managing negroes. They were not allowed to inflict punishment—only to report offenses. One of them left because of his objection to the negro court. The Davis system which was practiced until 1862 had vitality enough to survive for a while after the Federals had occupied the plantations, and a year later a Northern officer who saw what remained of the self-governing community and knowing nothing of its origin took it for a new development, and an evidence of how one year of freedom would elevate the blacks.
Isn't that special?