[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.

[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.