Davis’ refusal to name a judiciary was the act of a tyrant. His institution of the draft was also indefensible. Usurpation of the rights of the states was a mistake that would have assured that the Confederacy could never last as a group if they won the war. The states would have left the Confederacy to fully independent after the war and there may have been additional bloodshed. I’m not sure that Davis would have been any more ready to let the states leave the Confederacy than Lincoln was to let them leave the union.
Davis gets the blame because he was president, (and to a point rightly so) but the worst thing the South did was secede before trying to end slavery by having the states reimburse slave owners for their loss. Slavery was doomed any way. Reimbursement for their lost property would have settled the issue with out bloodshed. Firebrands like Davis never even tried to negotiate that option.
Secession should be a last resort not jumped into without a plan and a real effort to resolve the issues. Davis was too ready to leave the union and that was his first biggest mistake.
To glorify Davis is no more reasonable than to glorify Lincoln. Davis seems to me to be as flawed as Lincoln.
Davis gets the blame because he was president, (and to a point rightly so) but the worst thing the South did was secede before trying to end slavery by having the states reimburse slave owners for their loss. One can hardly blame Davis for that. In order for an end to slavery, compensated or otherwise, to succeed there would have had to be a desire for slavery to end. That did not exist down south. Southern leadership, including Davis, were firm in their belief that slavery was an institution to be enjoyed by their children and grandchildren. They saw slavery as the foundation for their wealth and way of life. It was an institution to be protected, not ended. Even if protecting it meant taking the southern states into rebellion. You may well say that slavery was doomed, and looking back over 140 years it may well have been. But I submit that there wasn't a single southern leader in 1861 who shared that view. No plan to end slavery would have met with any support.