The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate
by Jefferson Davis

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Title: The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government
Author: Jefferson Davis
Release Date: November 16, 2006 [EBook #19831]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT

By
JEFFERSON DAVIS

PREFACE.
The object of this work has been from historical data to show that the
Southern States had rightfully the power to withdraw from a Union into
which they had, as sovereign communities, voluntarily entered; that the
denial of that right was a violation of the letter and spirit of the compact
between the States; and that the war waged by the Federal Government
against the seceding States was in disregard of the limitations of the
Constitution, and destructive of the principles of the Declaration of
Independence.
The author, from his official position, may claim to have known much
of the motives and acts of his countrymen immediately before and
during the war of 1861-'65, and he has sought to furnish material far the
future historian, who, when the passions and prejudices of the day shall
have given place to reason and sober thought, may, better than a
contemporary, investigate the causes, conduct, and results of the war.
The incentive to undertake the work now offered to the public was the
desire to correct misapprehensions created by industriously circulated
misrepresentations as to the acts and purposes of the people and the
General Government of the Confederate States. By the reiteration of
such unappropriate terms as "rebellion" and "treason," and the
asseveration that the South was levying war against the United States,
those ignorant of the nature of the Union, and of the reserved powers of
the States, have been led to believe that the Confederate States were in
the condition of revolted provinces, and that the United States were
forced to resort to arms for the preservation of their existence. To those
who knew that the Union was formed for specific enumerated purposes,
and that the States had never surrendered their sovereignty it was a
palpable absurdity to apply to them, or to their citizens when obeying
their mandates, the terms "rebellion" and "treason"; and, further, it is

shown in the following pages that the Confederate States, so far from
making war or seeking to destroy the United States, as soon as they had
an official organ, strove earnestly, by peaceful recognition, to equitably
adjust all questions growing out of the separation from their late
associates.
Another great perversion of truth has been the arraignment of the men
who participated in the formation of the Confederacy and who bore
arms in its defense, as the instigators of a controversy leading to
disunion. Sectional issues appear conspicuously in the debates of the
Convention which framed the Federal Constitution, and its many
compromises were designed to secure an equilibrium between the
sections, and to preserve the interests as well as the liberties of the
several States. African servitude at that time was not confined to a
section, but was numerically greater in the South than in the North,
with a tendency to its continuance in the former and cessation in the
latter. It therefore thus early presents itself as a disturbing element, and
the provisions of the Constitution, which were known to be necessary
for its adoption, bound all the States to recognize and protect that
species of property. When at a subsequent period there arose in the
Northern States an antislavery agitation, it was a harmless and scarcely
noticed movement until political demagogues seized upon it as a means
to acquire power. Had it been left to pseudo-philanthropists and
fanatics, most zealous where least informed, it never could have shaken
the foundations of the Union and have incited one section to carry fire
and sword into the other. That the agitation was political in its character,
and was clearly developed as early as 1803, it is believed has been
established in these pages. To preserve a sectional equilibrium and to
maintain the equality of the States was the effort on one side, to acquire
empire was the manifest purpose on the other. This struggle began
before the men of the Confederacy were born; how it arose and how it
progressed it has been attempted briefly to show. Its last stage