Davis, Jefferson Finis

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"For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to mourn; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune for the South."

-- Jefferson Davis on the assassination of Lincoln.
 
"The war...must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks...unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence,--and that, or extermination, we WILL have."

-- Jefferson Davis in a conversation with James R. Gilmore and James F. Jaquess, who were conducting their own unofficial peace mission to Richmond during 1864.
 
President Jefferson Davis: "If this action is once tolerated, where will it end? Where is constitutional liberty? What strength is there in bills of rights-in limitation of power? What new hope for mankind is to be found in written constitutions, what remedy which did not exist under kings of emperors? If the doctrines thus announced by the government of the United States are conceded, then look through either end of the political telescope, and one sees only an empire, and the once famous Declaration of Independence trodden in the dust of as a "glittering generality," and the compact of the union denounced as a "flaunting lie". I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it. Those who submit to such consequence without resistance are not worthy the liberties and rights to which they were born, and deserve to be made slaves. Such must be the verdict of mankind."


(Message edited by johan_steele on March 23, 2004)
 
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March 16, 1861:
On this date in 1861, Jefferson Davis arrived in Montgomery to accept the post of Provisional President of the newly organized Confederate States of America. After making speeches at stops all along the rail route from Atlanta, Davis was tired but agreed to speak once more to the excited throng that awaited him in Montgomery. He told them in part "...now we are brethren, not in name, merely, but in fact-men of one flesh, one bone, one interest, one purpose, and of identity of domestic institutions," adding "I will devote to the duties of the high office to which I have been called all I have of heart, of head, and of hand."




(Message edited by johan_steele on March 25, 2004)
 
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Remarks in Mississippi City, Mississippi, undated, 1888.

"Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens: Ah, pardon me, the laws of the United States no longer permit me to designate you as fellow citizens, but I am thankful that I may address you as my friends. I feel no regret that I stand before you this afternoon a man without a country, for my ambition lies buried in the grave of the Confederacy. There has been consigned not only my ambition, but the dogmas upon which that Government was based. The faces I see before me are those of young men; had I not known this I would not have appeared before you. Men in whose hands the destinies of our Southland lie, for love of her I break my silence, to speak to you a few words of respectful admonition. The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and its aspirations; before you lies the future--a future full of golden promise; a future of expanding national glory, before which all the world shall stand amazed. Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished--

a reunited country."

Amen,
Unionblue
 
We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms.

'President Jefferson Davis - 29 April 1861'
 
"Although the Confederacy as an organization may have ceased to exist, the fundamental principles, the eternal truths, uttered when our colonies in 1776 declared their independence, on which the Confederation of 1781 and the Union of 1788 were formed, and which animated and guided the Confederacy of 1861, yet live, and in God's appointed place and time, will prevail." --Jefferson Davis
 
"Gentlemen, I know Sidney Johnston well. If he is not a general, we had better give up the war for we have no general."

- Davis, in response to a delegation of Tennesseans who had come to Richmond to demand Albert Sidney Johnston's removal "because he is no general."
 
With permission from D Lord.

"Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule."

Jefferson Davis, July 19, 1864. Source: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 14, No. 83, September 1864.
 
"Fellow citizens, if there is to be war, let it come. We can be ready in ten days. In another ten days we will take Washington. Philadelphia will be ours ten days later. In tend days more New York will fall into our hands. Boston we don't want because we don't care for baken beans!" -- Jefferson Davis.

Welcoming speech at local stop during Jefferson Davis's trip from Vicksburg to Montgomery, February 1861.

This was over a month prior to Lincoln taking office.
 
"Fellow citizens, if there is to be war, let it come. We can be ready in ten days. In another ten days we will take Washington. Philadelphia will be ours ten days later. In tend days more New York will fall into our hands. Boston we don't want because we don't care for baken beans!" -- Jefferson Davis.

Welcoming speech at local stop during Jefferson Davis's trip from Vicksburg to Montgomery, February 1861.

This was over a month prior to Lincoln taking office.


Hardly relevant since it was over two months since Lincoln’s election and his radical Republican agenda no secret.

It's been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon, but repentance must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented."
Jefferson Davis
 
I'm curious as to Lincoln's agenda. Presidents make promises all the time- it's how they get elected. Keeping and implementing those promises, that's something else. Clinton campaigned on lifting the military ban on gays; post inauguration, after meeting with the Pentagon and CJCS, we had DADT...

What could Lincoln and/or the RRs do in the face of Constitutional allowances for slavery, a Supreme Court which had recently upheld slave owners' rights to move where they wanted without losing their slaves, and numerous other legal mechanisms designed to permit slavery? An ammendment banning slavery wasn't going to be possible, new laws regarding the territories were doubtful to pass the Senate; even if they did, there was Dred Scott staring them in the face...
 
23869v.jpg




From the Library of Congress photograph collection:
Title: Home of Jefferson Davis, three generations
Summary: Photo shows the Davis Family at Beauvoir, Mississippi, in 1884 or 1885 (l to r): Varina Howell Davis Hayes [Webb] (1878-1934), Margaret Davis Hayes, Lucy White Hayes [Young] (1882-1966), Jefferson Davis, unidentified servant, Varina Howell Davis, and Jefferson Davis Hayes (1884-1975), whose name was legally changed to Jefferson Hayes-Davis in 1890. (Source: Jefferson Davis Papers, 2009)
Creator(s): Wilson, Edward L. (Edward Livingston), 1838-1903, photographer
Date Created/Published: [1884 or 1885], c1885.
Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-23869 (digital file from original item) LC-USZ62-10727 (b&w film copy neg.)
- Alan
 
I'm curious as to Lincoln's agenda. Presidents make promises all the time- it's how they get elected. Keeping and implementing those promises, that's something else. Clinton campaigned on lifting the military ban on gays; post inauguration, after meeting with the Pentagon and CJCS, we had DADT...

What could Lincoln and/or the RRs do in the face of Constitutional allowances for slavery, a Supreme Court which had recently upheld slave owners' rights to move where they wanted without losing their slaves, and numerous other legal mechanisms designed to permit slavery? An ammendment banning slavery wasn't going to be possible, new laws regarding the territories were doubtful to pass the Senate; even if they did, there was Dred Scott staring them in the face...

This is off-topic. But I highly recommend this book-length discussion of the above subject that was recently published:
Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861-1865 by James Oakes.

- Alan
 
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!
 
Hardly relevant since it was over two months since Lincoln’s election and his radical Republican agenda no secret.

It's been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon, but repentance must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented."
Jefferson Davis

CSA Today,

Sorry, but its extremely relevant.

Unionblue
 
"The South loves [Jefferson Davis's] memory as it should love it and as the people of every patriotic country should and ever will respect it. Were the people of the South to forget him, or fail to honor the man who endured so patiently for their sake, they in turn should deserve none of respect or place in the minds of me who have manhood....Jefferson Davis will live longer in history and better than will any who have ever spoken against him."

--editorial, New York World, written after Davis's funeral on December 11, 1889.
 
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