Davis ex-Presidents Day

[EHParks]

On his inauguration day February 18, 1861 the President elect will be paraded from his grand residence at the Exchange Hotel in Montgomery Alabama in a procession to the Alabama State Capitol for his speech, presumably in fine carriages escorted by outriders. It is at the hotel where he forms his cabinet, and indeed where he must form an entire government almost from nothing.

Abraham Lincoln, as is well known, had a much more somber and threatened arrival in his capital prior to his inaugural address, he however, had a government the moment he laid down the bible.

 

[Drew]

Niccolo Machiavelli said the two hardest jobs were to be the First Prince or the Prince faced with Civil War. Something like that.

Davis had it coming and going.

 

[johan_steele]

Davis and the CS government were up and running far too quickly to have been created from whole cloth on 2-18-61. There are those who have looked very hard at the Democratic convention of less than a year earlier in Charleston and believe much was put together then behind closed doors. I actually think it began in 1856 when Fremont ran and firmly believe had he won the ACW would have started 4 years earlier and been far more chaotic initially. By 61 the writing was on the wall and people had already been talking war for the better part of a decade and the Slaveocracy had been preparing for it.

The only people that thought a civil war could be avoided in 61 were those with their heads stuck firmly in the sand or with no idea of current events.

 

[EHParks]

Davis and the CS government were up and running far too quickly to have been created from whole cloth on 2-18-61. There are those who have looked very hard at the Democratic convention of less than a year earlier in Charleston and believe much was put together then behind closed doors. I actually think it began in 1856 when Fremont ran and firmly believe had he won the ACW would have started 4 years earlier and been far more chaotic initially. By 61 the writing was on the wall and people had already been talking war for the better part of a decade and the Slaveocracy had been preparing for it.

The only people that thought a civil war could be avoided in 61 were those with their heads stuck firmly in the sand or with no idea of current events.

They may have put together a rudimentary government cabinet and cobbled together state militia's and military supplies. That's a far cry from creating an entire Army, a Navy, a War Department, a State Department or even a Bureau of Measurements and Standards etc. Sure, you can cobble them together from the various states, take over some armory's here and there, as was done, they just never had the time to fully gestate, even though as you point out the crisis was years in coming, poorly understood by most, dreadfully anticipated by a few.

I've just been struck lately by the men of the Union who fundamentally and profoundly changed the Northern economy improving their Bureaus in innovative and effective ways, far beyond the capabilities that they already possessed prior to the war, nationwide communication and post services, vast rail lines, supply and logistics that reached out and into every corner of the Union. Those basic government services remained just that in the South for the most part, Jefferson Davis paid for all of his telegraph services during the war to multiple companies whereas the North controlled them all with the benefit of having full connections to the front where Davis had significant gaps among the Southern companies coverage.

 

[Drew]

Jefferson Davis paid for all of his telegraph services during the war to multiple companies whereas the North controlled them all with the benefit of having full connections to the front where Davis had significant gaps among the Southern companies coverage.

So, the Confederate government paid private parties for services rendered, whereas the North simply took what it needed?

I don't know the statement about telegraph service is true, but if it is, I know what kind of government I wish to live under, Comrade.

 

[breckod]

So, the Confederate government paid private parties for services rendered, whereas the North simply took what it needed?

I don't know the statement about telegraph service is true, but if it is, I know what kind of government I wish to live under, Comrade.

Amazing. Simply amazing.

 

[johan_steele]

So, the Confederate government paid private parties for services rendered, whereas the North simply took what it needed?

I don't know the statement about telegraph service is true, but if it is, I know what kind of government I wish to live under, Comrade.

Anyone who has ever studied the CS economy knows full well what CS money was worth after the money seized/stolen from the US was used up.

As for the CS being good about paying its own bills… a whole lot of creditors abroad and in the south would have disagreed. Not to mention many CS soldiers who never saw pay after mid 64.

Honesty and integrity is rarely the prevue of politicians and southern politicians were no better than any other.

You had one thing right in your first post on this thread: Davis had it coming…

The treasonous politicians got off easy. Davis and others, were into the creation of the CS neck deep, well prior to any hostility or even SC deciding Secession. They planned, lack of competence in CS govt was evident from very early.

 

[EHParks]

So, the Confederate government paid private parties for services rendered, whereas the North simply took what it needed?

I don't know the statement about telegraph service is true, but if it is, I know what kind of government I wish to live under, Comrade.

Sure, no need for a reliable national wartime communication system. Shrug. *edited for undue snippiness, sorry.

Good link on the Telegraph: Telegraph During the Civil War

 

[breckod]

Sure, no need for a reliable national wartime communication system. Shrug. Comrade

I, for one, think FDR should have been personally footing the bill every time he needed to talk to Ike!

 

[EHParks]

I, for one, think FDR should have been personally footing the bill every time he needed to talk to Ike!

FDR was the last to know sometimes! Apparently ground was broken for the Pentagon before he even approved it. This is a very interesting book about D.C. in WWII by the reporter David Brinkley, interestingly enough typewriters were deemed essential war goods and were massively produced all during the war effort. The army of largely female clerical workers transformed a government largely unchanged in practice since after the Civil War era. Washington Goes to War

 

[Drew]

The army of largely female clerical workers transformed a government largely unchanged in practice since after the Civil War era.

Yes, many know of Rosie the Riveter in Detroit, who built war materiel. Fewer know of the women who flocked to Washington, DC and ran our government, particularly the logistics required to supply an invasion of French Normandy and the Okinawan Islands outside of Japan.

I knew two of them, my grandmother's younger sisters. Bless them both and all of the other women who rose to the challenge of their time.

 

[LetUsHavePeace]

E. H. Parks' comments raise the question that needs far more discussion - what were the finances of the United States and Confederate States. This study of what happened to the Confederate dollar is an excellent summary of what became, IMHO, the central problem for the Confederacy: how do you create the credit that allows you to have a war that your citizens cannot possibly pay for? The Union faces the same problem, yet it was able to find a successful workaround, even if it violated all of the previously established rules for banking and public finance.

Money and Finance in the Confederate States of America

eh.net