An INterview with President Jefferson Davis

Federation of StatesAN INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS ^

[Aurelius]

Gentlemen: I have transcribed this article from an English paper entitled "The Globe and Traveller" of September 2nd, 1864, of which I have an original in my possession. It is a negotiation interview between Jefferson Davis and Judah Benjamin of the Confederacy, and Colonel Jaques and J. R. Gilmore of the Union. I have emboldened a part that sums up what the South was all about.

Warmest Regards ...Brian Lee Merrill

****************************************

The Globe and Traveller (England) Friday Evening, September 2, 1864

AN INTERVIEW WITH PRESIDENT DAVIS

The Atlantic Monthly in an article in the September number gives a narrative of Colonel Jaque's interview with President Davis, which took place some time ago, exciting a great deal of curiosity at the time. The narrative is from the pen of J. R. Gilmore, a companion of Colonel Jaques. The substance of the communication between the President and the two negotiators was made public at the time, but the following extract will give a better idea of the proposal discussed:-

Colonel Jaques: "Suppose the two Governments agree to something like this:- to go to the people with two propositions - say, peace, with disunion and Southern independence, as your proposition, and peace, with union, emancipation, no confiscation, and universal amnesty, as ours. Let the citizens of all the United States (as they existed before the war) vote "Yes" or "No" on these two propositions, at a special election, within 60 days. If a majority votes disunion, our Government to be bound by it, and to let you go in peace; if a majority votes union, yours to be bound by it, and to stay in peace. The two Governments can contract in this way, and the people, though unconstitutionally unable to decide on peace or war, can elect which of the two propositions shall govern their rulers. Let Lee and Grant meanwhile agree to an armistice. This would sheath the sword; and if once sheathed would never again be drawn by this generation."

President Davis: "The plan is altogether impracticable. If the South were only one state it might work; but, as it is, if one Southern state objected to the emancipation, it would nullify the whole thing, for you are aware that the people of Virginia cannot vote slavery out of South Carolina, nor the people of South Carolina vote it out of Virginia."

Colonel Jaques: "But three-fourths of the States can amend the constitution. Let it be done in that way, in any way, so that it be done by the people. I am not a statesman or a politician, and I do no know just how such a plan could be carried out; but you get the idea - that the people shall decide the question."

President Davis:"That the majority shall decide it you mean. We seceded to rid ourselves of the rule of the majority, and this would subject us to it again."

Colonel Jaques: "But the majority must rule finally, either with bullets or ballots."

President Davis:"I am not so sure of that. Neither current events nor history shows that the majority rules, or ever did rule. The contrary, I think, is true. Why, Sir, the man who should go before the Southern people with such a proposition, with any proposition which implied that the North was to have a voice in determining the domestic relations of the South, could not live here a day. He would be hanged to the first tree, without judge or jury."

Colonel Jaques: "Allow me to doubt that. I think it more likely he would be hanged if he let the Southern people know the majority couldn't rule," I replied smiling.

President Davis:"I have no fear of that," rejoined Mr. Davis, also smiling good humouredly. "I give you leave to proclaim it from every housetop in the South."

Colonel Jaques: "But, seriously, sir, you let the majority rule in a single State: why not let it rule in the whole country?"

President Davis:"Because the states are independent and sovereign. The country is not. It is only a confederation of states; or rather it was; it is now two confederations."

Colonel Jaques: "Then we are not a people - we are only a political partnership?"

President Davis:"That is all."

Judah Benjamin: "Your very name, sir, 'United States,' implies that," said Mr. Benjamin. "But tell me, are the terms you have named - emancipation, no confiscation, and universal amnesty - the terms which Mr. Lincoln authorised you to offer us?"

Colonel Jaques: "No, sir; Mr. Lincoln did not authorise me to offer you any terms. But I think both he and the Northern people, for the sake of peace, would assent to some such conditions."

President Davis:"They are very generous," replied Mr. Davis, for the first time during the interview showing some angry feeling. "But amnesty, Sir, applies to criminals. We have committed no crime. Confiscation is of no account, unless you can enforce it. And emancipation! You have already emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves, and if you will take care of them you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me. Against their will you 'emancipated' them, and you may 'emancipate' every Negro in the Confederacy, but we will be free. We will govern ourselves. We will do it if we have to see every Southern plantation sacked, and every Southern city in flames."

Colonel Jaques: "I see, Mr. Davis, it is useless to continue this conversation," I replied, "and you will pardon us, if we have seemed to press our views with too much pertinacity. We love the old flag, and that must be our apology for intruding upon you at all."

Colonel Jaques: As we were leaving the room Mr. Davis said,

President Davis:"Say to Mr. Lincoln from me that I [shall be] at any time he pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other."

Colonel Jaques: When we went out Mr. Benjamin called Judge Ould, who had been waiting during the whole interview - two hours - at the other end of the hall, and we passed down the stairway together. As I put my arm within that of the judge, he said to me- "Well, what is the result?" "Nothing but war - war to the knife." "Ephraim is joined to his idols - let him alone," added the Colonel solemnly.

[Aurelius]

Flag

[Support Free Republic]

Hi mom!

[stainlessbanner]

bttt

[stand watie]

!

[shuckmaster]

ping!

[Colt .45]

And the truth shall set us free!

[Ursus arctos horribilis]

Judah Benjamin was a Jew. Before the war he was resented and hated by many in the senate, while the people of Louisiana were damned for electing a Jew as a US Senator. "Once on the floor of the US Senate, Ben Wade of Ohio charged Benjamin with being an "Israelite in Egyptian clothing. " With characteristic eloquence, Benjamin replied, "It is true that I am a Jew, and when my ancestors were receiving their Ten Commandments from the immediate Deity, amidst the thundering and lightnings of Mt. Sinai, the ancestors of my opponent were herding swine in the forests of Great Britain." (fn 1)------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He later valiantly served the Confederacy in three capacities, attorney general, secretary of state and secretary of war, Benjamin was the only man Davis trusted explicitly without question. Nothing of consequence was ever plotted or carried out by the Confederate government that was not guided or counseled by Benjamin. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "He wanted freedom granted to any slave that would take up arms in the defense of the south, he propose this to an audience of 10,000 persons in Richmond in 1864, his remarks lit a firestorm." (fn 2) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During the war Lincoln's people damned Benjamin as the brains of the Confederacy, and having done more than any other single man to keep the south sustained so as to continue the war. If I remember right he was going to charged in the complicity of Lincoln's assassination and had a death penalty awaiting him if captured. When the war ended he had an harrowing escape to England where he later wrote a much acclaimed classic legal text on the sale of personal property.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Perhaps the best-known posthumous caricature of Benjamin appears in the epic poem John Brown’s Body, by Stephen Vincent Benet. Describing him as a "dark prince," Benet depicts Judah Benjamin as "other" in Confederate inner circles:---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judah P. Benjamin, the dapper Jew, Seal-sleek, black-eyed, lawyer and epicure, Able, well-hated, face alive with life, Looked round the council-chamber with the slight Perpetual smile he held before himself continually like a silk-ribbed fan. . . . [His] quick, shrewd fluid mind Weighed Gentiles in an old balance . . . The eyes stared, searching. "I am a Jew. What am I doing here?" (fn 3)----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (fn 1,fn 2 & fn 3 sourced from American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS) at, ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jewish Virtual Library

[sheltonmac]

Thanks for the post, Aurelius!

A *ping* to anyone who might have been missed!

[billbears]

But amnesty, Sir, applies to criminals. We have committed no crime. Confiscation is of no account, unless you can enforce it. And emancipation! You have already emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves, and if you will take care of them you may emancipate the rest. I had a few when the war began. I was of some use to them; they never were of any to me. Against their will you 'emancipated' them, and you may 'emancipate' every Negro in the Confederacy, but we will be free. We will govern ourselves.

Great line, and two things jump out immediately. The concern and care of the emancipated slaves, something the northern tyrant could have cared less about. And the fact that even if every slave was emancipated we would still want our freedom. Doesn't sound like something one would say if the war was fought over slavery, as our northern occupiers have 'taught' year after year after year forcefeeding a bold face lie

Bump for a great man

[Cannoneer No. 4]

What, no tiresome Yankees to pontificate on what a traitor President Davis was?

The Confederacy was diverse before diversity was cool.

I sure hope we can put the hard feelings from the last internicine blood-letting behind us before the next one starts.

[Ditto]

And emancipation! You have already emancipated nearly two millions of our slaves...

I thought it was an article of dogma in the Neo-Confederate (and Socialist) religion that the Emancipapion Proclamation never freed one slave and here we have Jeff Davis saying 2 million were freed even before Sherman made his march through Georgia and the Carolinas?

What the hell gives? Was Davis part of the Lincoln cult or was he just educated in government schools?

[x]

That would be Rev. or Colonel Jacques or Jaquess, who went with Gilmore on an unofficial peace mission to Richmond. But really, is it any surprise that Davis, the supposed head of the supposed Confederacy would make Southern independence the only possible ground for peace he would accept? Anything short wouldn't have left him with much of a role. Of course if he were to go on fighting, it would have to be for independence. But that doesn't tell us much about the deeper or ultimate causes of the war.

Curiously, this interview may have cost Davis the war. It's said that the interview confirmed that a negotiated peace and union were incompatible, and strengthened Lincoln's position in the 1864 election.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Federal occupation of much of Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi and coastal South Carolina emancipated the slaves to which President Davis refers.

[Aurelius]

As you know very well the emancipation that Jefferson referred to had nothing to do with Lincoln's phony Emancipation Proclamation.

[Aurelius]

"Great line, and two things jump out immediately. The concern and care of the emancipated slaves, something the northern tyrant could have cared less about. ..."

"When asked by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stepehens at the 1865 Hampton Roads 'peace' conference what would become of the freedmen without property or education, Lincoln sarcastically recited the words to a popular minstrel song, 'root, hog or die.'"

The Great Emancipator

[Aurelius]

"But really, is it any surprise that Davis, the supposed head of the supposed Confederacy would make Southern independence the only possible ground for peace he would accept? "

Not hardly, since the preservation of their independence was what the Confederacy was fighting for in the first place.

[PeaRidge]

Davis was rightfully concerned with independance. He wanted the Confederacy to return to the days of freedom from invasion.

Considering the history of the situation, the Union representatives were dealing in the absurd.

I can see why he was angry.

The issue of Lincoln enforcing non-constitutional law had become the critical issue that produced the secession.

At the time of the establishment of the US Constitution, fortunately the resolution of this problem was left more or less open.

The concept of a Federal institution with coercive powers to enforce law went beyond the powers that the founding fathers were willing to delegate to the government.

The state representatives at the Constitutional Convention knew that without Federal authority to coerce the states, there could be no armed conflict.

Whatever the practical limitations of its enforcement, however, the idea of federal law, which emerged in a rudimentary form as a result of the philosophical discussion prompted by the discovery of America, and later codified in the Constitution, became supremely important. It began the process of thought that each state was not a moral universe unto itself, but morally bound in its behavior by basic principles on which civilized peoples might agree. The state, in other words, would come to be seen as not morally autonomous.

This became the philosophical and eventually moral foundation for the rationalization of politicians in the United States to conduct "just" warfare.

The idea of the "just" war became a moral issue, and not of Constitutional law. A war could begin if a state had violated the norms of moral law in its interaction with another state. This then justified one state or several states having grounds for waging a just war against another.

In essence, morality defined by one was sufficient justification for war against another, the Constitution notwithstanding.

This was the underpinning of the anger of the South then and now.

[lowbridge]

What, no tiresome Yankees to pontificate on what a traitor President Davis was?

President? You call him President after all the disenfranchised minorites that werent allowed to vote? pResident is more like it. ;-)