What were Jefferson Davis' political viewpoints?

Question

Aside from the support of slavery and seccession... states rights and the like?

Answer 1

DGS is correct that Davis was not one of those DEMANDING secession. Unlike them he did WANT to stay in the Union.

But don't be dooped by his pro-Union statements. These must be taken together with his other statements and actions his loyalty to the South--and SLAVERY-- was always far stronger than that to the Union or to "states rights", and so he was quite ready to secede rather than accept "Black Republican" government. In this regard, he was like Calhoun who argued that slavery was a positive GOOD (and who might be called 'the father of the Confederacy').


I don't usually cut and paste much but dictionary entries and primary sources, but here is the central part of an EXCELLENT book review written by history professor Peter Carmichael . It captures all of this very nicely:

"Cooper is correct that Davis sincerely believed in states' rights and that he loved the Union, but the thrust of his argument obscures Davis's true identity. At the most fundamental level, Davis was a Southern slaveholder who flew the banner of states' rights when it suited the advancement of Southern interests. He even jettisoned states' rights during the 1850s to promote pro-Southern policies. He wanted the Federal government to construct a transcontinental railroad that would pass through the South. He thought the national government should acquire Cuba for slavery expansion. He also favored the pro-slavery LeCompton Constitution in Kansas even though he knew it was a mockery of popular sovereignty, an egregious violation of states' rights.

"Davis can be better understood as a Southern radical who followed in the footsteps of the great South Carolinian John C. Calhoun. Both men preferred Union but feared that the South, as a minority region with an unpopular institution, might lose political equality in the united nation. They both aggressively prepared Southerners for the necessity of secession if an anti-slavery party like the Republicans gained national control. Davis, although quick to denounce the fire-eaters, told a Democratic convention that a Republican victory would result in a tyrannical majority. Recognizing Lincoln's "Black Republicans," he warned, was shameful and dishonorable. Cooper is right that Davis was not part of the secessionist vanguard in 1860, but the Mississippian, despite his pleas of loyalty to Union, was responsible for nourishing the dream of Southern nationhood that ultimately made secession a political reality. Instead of Jefferson Davis, American, a better title for Cooper's book would have been Jefferson Davis, Southerner."
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a6bf3eb3ee3.htm

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Evidence for Carmichael's summary --

To see more on the story of Davis's political positions and behavior as Secretary of War (including the railroad issue), on slavery in the territories -- including the Lecompton Constitution AND supporting the effort to split off part of southern California to form a slave state, MANY books on the 1850s lay this all out. Here are two examples -- a new one I've just read and an old one I'm in the middle of (both excellent)

Leonard Richards *The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War* (2006)

Roy Ranklin Nicolls *The Disruption of American Democracy* (1948) [Pulitzer Prize winning book.. a classic]

Answer 2

I was somewhat surprised to learn in my Civil War reading that he was not at all a so-called "fire eater" but was a more conservative person who tried hard while in Congress to avoid getting to the point of secession, as were a lot of the leaders of the Confederate government. The fire eaters got the whole secession thing going, but the more conservative guys ended up running the government. I haven't done as much reading about him personally once the war started, but I get a sense that he "lost it" as the war went on and the pressure increased.

Answer 3

"My devotion to the Union of our fathers had been so often and so publicly declared; I had on the floor of the Senate so defiantly challenged any question of my fidelity to it; my services, civil and military, had now extended through so long a period and were so generally known, that I felt quite assured that no whisperings of envy or ill-will could lead the people of Mississippi to believe that I had dishonored their trust by using the power they had conferred on me to destroy the government to which I was accredited. Then, as afterward, I regarded the separation of the States as a great, though not the greater evil."