I don't want to question or comment on Davis' utterings, but rather his NAME: in the title of this thread it reads ( as I have seen all-too-often in the past few years ) Jefferson FINIS Davis. Although author William C. Davis ( who I otherwise respect ) calls him this, I distinctly remember an old article in Civil War Times Illustrated convincingly stating that Davis HAD NO MIDDLE NAME. According to the article, the FINIS ( which of course is French for "end" and is pronounced "fin-knee" ) was applied to him in derision by Northern newspapermen like Horace Greely, akin to all the stuff about "The Last Ditch", etc. predicting the imminent downfall of the Confederacy.
According to William Davis' biography, Jefferson Davis was supposedly given the middle name "Finis" since he was from a large family and was intended to be the final child. This sounds like so much uninformed revisionist BS - UNLESS there is a birth certificate or some other early document showing this to be a fact. Does any such exist? If this is NOT true, then why is it that throughout his life prior to and including the Presidency he is simply "Jefferson Davis"?
There does exist a precedent for the "Finis" notion here in Texas; there was an ex-Confederate soldier and post-war memoirist named Decimus et Ultimus Barziza whose strange moniker translates from Latin ( his father must've fancied himself a Classicist ) "Tenth and Last", reflecting his particular place on the family tree! So I'm NOT disputing the idea itself; but rather its application to President Davis. For example, his book is NOT The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson F. Davis! And if in his own lifetime HE disavowed the middle name ( even assuming there WAS one ), who are WE to saddle his memory with it!