Death of Jefferson Davis Remembered - The Christmas of 1889 Was a Sad Time in the South

Accessnga.com ^ | 11/19/07 | Calvin Johnson, Jr.

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Death of Jefferson Davis Remembered - The Christmas of 1889 was a sad time in the South. By Calvin Johnson Jr. Staff Email Contact Editor Print

Jefferson Davis - AuthenticHistory.com December 6th, is the 118th anniversary of the death of a great American Hero---Jefferson Davis.

The "Politically Correct" would have you forget the past...But do not forget the history of the men and women who made the USA great.

Caution, this is a family friendly story to be shared.

The Sons of Confederate Veterans have declared 2008, the "Year of Jefferson Davis." Remembrance events will include the re-opening of "Beauvoir" on Jefferson Davis' 200th birthday---June 3, 2008. This was Davis' last home that was damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The Jefferson Davis Presidential Library and Museum will be rebuilt and re-open about two years after the house. Beauvoir is located on the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast. See more at: www.beauvoir.org

The New York Times reported the death of Jefferson Davis;

New Orleans, December 8, 1889---Quote "A careful tally of the visitors shows that about 40,000 persons, mostly women and children, viewed the remains today. This crowd included, in solemn and respectful attendance, all conditions of Whites, Blacks, ex-Confederates, ex-Federals, and even Indians and Chinamen." ---Unquote

Davis' Death was also the page 1 story in Dixie;

Excerpt: http://www.accessnorthga.com/detail.php?n=204067&c=11

[CommerceComet]

The one thing that drives me nuts in the Civil War discussions is the insistence by each side that its side had a monopoly on the good men. History is seldom black and white. In the Civil War, EACH side had some good men and EACH side has some incredibly wicked men.

Neither side had a monopoly on morality, either. While I am inclined to agree with the South's right to secede from the union, it was absolutely wrong on slavery.

[rabscuttle385]

You’re very ignorant of history since you believe the civil war was about slavery and only the southern states had slaves. I do believe six northern states had slaves and Lincoln only proclaimed the southern slaves free during his emancipation proclamation speech.

You are correct. Slavery continued to persist in Kentucky and Delaware until the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in 1865. Other actions ended slavery in Missouri and Maryland; and West Virginia was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation only legally ended slavery in the States that had formally seceded (i.e., Confederate States).

Regardless, slavery was prohibited within the territory of the United States with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment.

As for the "slavery" issue, I do believe that the racial element has been hyped up in recent decades. Racism was prevalent throughout the North and the South well into the twentieth century and, in some areas, continues today.

The seceding States were largely agricultural, rural, and heavily dependent on slave labor, economically speaking. The Union states, however, were significantly more urbanized and more dependent on manufacturing in commerce. And, in the Midwest, we had agriculture based on free labor. So, basically, we had two competing economic systems. Laws that benefited one side did not necessarily benefit the other.

As for the Northern States, they are not spotless either. Before the slave trade was ended in 1808, New England shipping and commerce was an active participant in the slave trade prior to 1808. And, while we are tackling issues of labor, young children worked under dangerous conditions and for long hours in New England manufacturing facilities.

The American Civil War was not necessarily about slavery, at least, not in the racial sense. Look at the economics--they tell a somewhat different story.

(I would be grateful to FReepers who spot errors or omissions in my post and subsequently correct or amend them.)

[Non-Sequitur]

Free trade, for one.

You claim would have a more weight if not for the fact that one of the very first acts of the confederate congress, May 1861, was the passage of a protectionist tariff. How big a bone of contention could it have been if their first inclination is to adopt one for themselves?

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

In that case, they were a hostile nation on the border of the United States, building a large army and opening fire on US forces occupying land to which the United States held title.

And doing so because of mobilisations by the North, and an impending Northern attack. Self-defence apparently IS evil, if the wrong politics are at stake.

You can't declare yourself a foreign country, start shooting, then complain when you get treated like one.

The South wouldn't have had to mobilise and "start shooting" if the North would have held to the agreements about Ft. Sumter and other forts which it had originally made with the Confederate and South Carolina governments, and if the North hadn't been mobilising a rather large army with the intention of invading the secessionary States.

Davis, Stephens, and the other Southern leadership more or less asked the North if they would just let them go in peace. They made numerous public pronouncements that they desired not war, but to be left alone. The North wasn't willing to do that, and pushed the issue through systematic mobilisation and breaking agreements with the South.

[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

You claim would have a more weight if not for the fact that one of the very first acts of the confederate congress, May 1861, was the passage of a protectionist tariff. How big a bone of contention could it have been if their first inclination is to adopt one for themselves?

The confusion is in that you have missed the whole point to the issue of tariffs and free trade, as they relate to the historical context. The South did not want the North tariffing its agricultural products - the South made a lot of money off of selling freely to Britain and France, and didn't want the North ending that with the high duties established by the Morrill Tariff and other acts. the North wanted tariffs (reasonably enough) to protect its growing industries from European competition. The problem is that the Northern section wanted to extend this tariffing to agricultural exports as well, and largely to make lots of money for the federal treasury. Once the SOuth was independent, it had the same impulses toward protection of incipient industry that the North had - and did so. The difference is that the CSA's tariff was not, and was not intended to be, a punitive tariff for the purpose of making money off of an other section's productivity and commerce.

[ReignOfError]

The reality is that he was a pretty retiring, chastened individual after the war and there was little mileage to be made politically out of publicly befriending him or associating with him.

But he had plenty of friends and admirers, and it was much easier to celebrate him after he died than to champion him while he was alive.

The national climate was much different in 1889 than it was in 1866.

The historical term for this is "The Glorious Cause." The leading Confederates, the ones who survived, were ambiguous human figures, especially during Reconstruction. After they died, they could be canonized -- they were no longer around to say or do something stupid and embarrass their performers.

From the end of Reconstruction, students in the North and the South were taught two (at least) separate and mutually exclusive versions of the War of Northern Aggression/Civil War/War between the states.

Southern students were taught that the war wasn't about slavery (not entirely, but in significant part); that the States had an absolute right to annul federal law or leave the Union (debated from the adoption of the Constitution to present), that the Yankees fired first (also hotly debated), and that Lincoln was a tyrant (arguable, and I won't rehash it all, but Lincoln didn't suspend, postpone or cancel the elections of 1862 or 1864).

Northern students were taught that slavery was evil (it was), that Lincoln entered into the war to free the slaves (he didn't), That Lincoln did free the slaves (he didn't), and contradictory versions of the points above.

The "Glorious Cause" version of history was the standard curriculum in Southern schools until at least the middle of the civil rights era, and there were still large elements of it when I was in school in the '80s. I was lucky enough to have a great AP American hiistory teacher, one who taught the issues with the level of shading you've really got to have to get the picture.

I will also point out that many former Confederates who despised him while he was alive became his biggest boosters when he died.

That's the way with dead politicians. Look at all of Reagan's harshest critics lined up to sing his praises after he died. We was no longer a political entity, no longer a rival, so they could afford to praise him. Or, for that matter, Lincoln, who was lionized by the folks baying for his blood weeks before.

The CSA was not monolithic, any more than any polity is. There were political rivalries, which became bitter and personal and acrimonious, as they always do in times of crisis. When the man was dead, the war long over, and the issues that divided them no longer current, they could take a longer view. And maybe be publicly charitable, even if they still privately thought he was a sumbitch.

[ReignOfError]

a pro-slavery traitor

You just described George Washington in the minds of many people.

One for two, Washington, though a slave-owner, was not pro-slavery -- he was born into the system and struggled throughout his life to find a solution.

He was clearly a traitor to Britain. The greatest of patriots to America. Which side is right? The Declaration of Independence lays out the moral and logical case for the American position more eloquently than I can.

[ReignOfError]

No American who knows his history can give unqualified praise to the Confederacy.

No one who knows his history can give unqualified praise to either side in most conflicts. The key word is "unqualified." War, by its very nature, involves atrocities, strange bedfellows and odious alliances, great deeds with bad motives and vise versa.

In order to gain independence, and to claim the mantle of democracy, The Americans had to strike alliances with France and Spain, both monarchies far less democratic than Britain's. In order to defeat Hitler, the Allies had to cozy up to Stalin, who in the end killed more than Hitler. To fight Mao, the West allied with Chiang -- choosing the merely corrupt leader over the psychopathic -- and lost.

[ReignOfError]

>>>How the Union treated him while he was there for two years is one of the uglier post Civil War incidents you’ll never read about in any highschool history book.

For the most part he was treated far better than Union POWs were treated in the South.

I assume you're talking about Andersonville. That was indeed a horror, and I won't try to minimize it. But Confederate POWs held in the North didn't fare a lot better.

More Union POWs died due to tropical disease -- more CSA prisoners due to exposure. Both were subjected to overcrowded, underfed and unsanitary conditions. Look into the story of the Chicago prison yard. It's less well-known than Andersonville, because the victor writes the histories.

The Union and the Confederacy were both overwhelmed with sheer numbers of prisoners. Both sides obstinately refused prisoner exchanges, which had been the custom up to that time. Neither side diverted scarce supplies from its front-line troops to its prisoners. Neither side had modern medicine -- antiseptic practices had been discovered, but not widely adopted yet. Sepsis, gangrene and disease killed more soldiers in that war than shot or shell. No weapon was more lethal than dysentery.

[puroresu]

Thanks for a reasoned response!

Just for the record, I’m not criticizing Washington. My point was that this obsessive Political Correctness is going to kill us as a nation. You may well be correct to argue that Washington was a slave owner, as opposed to being pro-slavery, but that won’t make a dime’s worth of difference to the PC crowd. The fact that he didn’t free every slave in America and then give them all voting rights will render him just as sub-human and evil as Jefferson Davis, in their minds.

[Non-Sequitur]

And doing so because of mobilisations by the North, and an impending Northern attack. Self-defence apparently IS evil, if the wrong politics are at stake.

You keep ignoring the fact that prior to Sumter only the South was mobilizing. The day Lincoln was inaugurated the South funded 100,000 troops, or 7 times the size of the U.S. army. The U.S. did not call up any troops until after the South had initiated the war by firing on Sumter.

[Non-Sequitur]

The South did not want the North tariffing its agricultural products - the South made a lot of money off of selling freely to Britain and France, and didn't want the North ending that with the high duties established by the Morrill Tariff and other acts. the North wanted tariffs (reasonably enough) to protect its growing industries from European competition.

And what you seem to be confused with is how tariffs work. Tariffs were not placed on exports of any kind. As for imports, duties impacted all areas of the country equally and did not penalize the South more than other areas.

The problem is that the Northern section wanted to extend this tariffing to agricultural exports as well, and largely to make lots of money for the federal treasury.

Impossible. Article I, Section 9 is quite specific: "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State." Period.

The difference is that the CSA's tariff was not, and was not intended to be, a punitive tariff for the purpose of making money off of an other section's productivity and commerce.

But it was protective in nature, in spite of the fact that their own constitution said protective tariffs were not allowed.

[Non-Sequitur]

I assume you're talking about Andersonville. That was indeed a horror, and I won't try to minimize it. But Confederate POWs held in the North didn't fare a lot better.

No arguement there. The treatment, or rather mistreatment, of POWs on both sides was deliberate and shameful.

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

And doing so because of mobilisations by the North, and an impending Northern attack. Self-defence apparently IS evil, if the wrong politics are at stake.

What mobilizations? Lincoln's call-up of the militia didn't occur until after Ft. Sumter had been bombarded into submission. Meanwhile, the CSA had called for 100,000 volunteers over a month earlier, only two days after Lincoln took office. That was an army nearly seven times the size of the standing US army of the time--an army, by the way, which was almost entirely off in the west protecting the frontier from Indians.

The South wouldn't have had to mobilise and "start shooting" if the North would have held to the agreements about Ft. Sumter and other forts which it had originally made with the Confederate and South Carolina governments, and if the North hadn't been mobilising a rather large army with the intention of invading the secessionary States.

What agreements? There were no agreements, only a status quo that Buchanan was happy to let stand until his term was up.

Davis, Stephens, and the other Southern leadership more or less asked the North if they would just let them go in peace. They made numerous public pronouncements that they desired not war, but to be left alone.

I'm sure they did, just like a bank robber just wants the money and doesn't want anyone to get hurt.

[IronJack]

What is there to dispraise in the defense of the Union?

1) Lincoln's suspension of numerous constitutional rights (habeus corpus, free press, e.g.);
2) The destruction of states' rights as an operative political doctrine, and the substitution of non-negotiable federalism;
3) The first pass at an income tax;
4) The corruption of the procurement process for Union supplies and materiel;
5) The lukewarm and ineffective way in which the war was waged under Scott, McClellan, & Co. in the early stages;
6) A lasting legacy of overbearing paternalism that borders on hubris, that defies the spirit of this nation's founding, and that has been exploited to force unconscionable uniformity throughout a polyglot culture.

Other than that ...

Another poster had it right: BOTH sides can claim their heros and their scoundrels. To suggest that Confederate soldiers were not driven as much by honor as Union troops is absurd and chauvinistic.

[Hunterite]

Why are Republicans defending the actions of Democrats?

[MattinNJ]

Thanks for the info.

[Hunterite]

“Thanks for a reasoned response!

Just for the record, I’m not criticizing Washington. My point was that this obsessive Political Correctness is going to kill us as a nation. You may well be correct to argue that Washington was a slave owner, as opposed to being pro-slavery, but that won’t make a dime’s worth of difference to the PC crowd. The fact that he didn’t free every slave in America and then give them all voting rights will render him just as sub-human and evil as Jefferson Davis, in their minds.”

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

Political correctness? really?

The Stars on the Bars is a flag designed for Democrats, made by Democrats, and flown over many monopolized Democrat controlled state assemblies engaged in treachery. I don’t shed a tear as the Democrats cannibalize their own flag and symbols.

[Non-Sequitur]

Well since we’re talking about Jefferson Davis then I suppose it would not be out of place to note that Davis also suspended numerous rights among Southern citizens, also trampled state’s rights by forcibly extending the enlistments of state regiments for the duration of the war, also implemented an income tax and tried to raise it to almost confiscatory levels, appointed numerous incompetents to high positions in the confederate government and military, interfered with the prosecution of the war, and specifically ignored his constitution in several areas. Add to that the fact that he seized farm output without compensation ‘for the war effort’, forced private ship owners to reserve a large part of their cargo space without compensation ‘for the war effort’, conscripted slave labor without compensation ‘for the war effort’, nationalized industries, and basically did what he wanted without judicial oversight and Lincoln looks damned good by comparison.

[purpleraine]

There’s another one-word description of Lincoln. Winner.