The Life of Jefferson Davis. Alfriend Frank Heath
decision of the sword only establishes facts, and does not determine questions of principle, then the principle of States’ Rights will be commemorated as something more valuable, than as the mere pretext upon which a few agitators inaugurated an unjustifiable revolt for the overthrow of the Government of the Union. Nothing is more likely than that many who recently rejoiced at its suppression by physical force, may mourn its departure as of that one vital inspiration, which alone could have averted the decay of the public liberties. Practically a “dead letter” now in the partizan slang of the demagogues who rule the hour, since its prostration by military power in the service of the antipodal principle of consolidation, it will live forever as the motive and occasion of a struggle, unparalleled in its heroism and sacrifices in behalf of constitutional liberty.
There is little ground for wonder at the total ignorance and persistent misconception in the mind of Europe, at the commencement of the war, of the motives and purposes of the Confederates in seeking a dissolution of the Union, when we consider the limited information and perverted views of the Northern people and politicians respecting the nature of the Federal Government and the intentions of its authors. Naturally enough, perhaps, the North, seeing in the Union the source of its marvelous material prosperity, and with an astute appreciation of its ability, by its rapidly-growing numerical majority, to pervert the Government to any purpose of sectional aggression agreeable to its ambition or interests, refused to tolerate, as either rational or honest, any theory that contemplated disunion as possible in any contingency. In their willful ignorance and misapprehension most Northern orators and writers denounced the doctrines of States’ Rights as new inventions– as innovations upon the faith of the fathers of the Republic – and professed to regard the most enlightened and patriotic statesmen of the South, the pupils and followers of illustrious Virginians and Carolinians of the Revolutionary era, as agitators, conspirators, and plotters of treason against the Union. Upon the score of antiquity, States’ Rights principles have a claim to respectability – not for a moment to be compared with the wretched devices of expediency or the hybrid products of political atheism, to which the brazen audacity and hypocrisy of the times apply the misnomer of “principles.”
They are, in fact, older than the Union, and antedate, not only the present Constitution, but even the famous Articles of Confederation, under which our forefathers fought through the first Revolution. The Congress which adopted the Declaration of Independence emphatically negatived a proposition looking to consolidation, offered by New Hampshire on the 15th of June, 1776, that the Thirteen Colonies be declared a “free and independent State,” and expressly affirmed their separate sovereignty by declaring them to be “free and independent States.” The declaration of the Articles of Confederation was still more explicit – that “each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.” The Convention of 1787 clearly designed the present Constitution to be the instrument of a closer association of the States than had been effected by the Articles of Confederation, but the proof is exceedingly meager of any general desire that it should establish a consolidated nationality.
At this early period the antagonism of the two schools of American politics was plainly discernible. The conflict of faith is easily indicated. The advocates of States’ Rights regarded the Union as a compact between the States– something more than a mere league formed for purposes of mutual safety, but still a strictly voluntary association of Sovereignties, in which certain general powers were specifically delegated to the Union; and all others not so delegated were reserved by the States in their separate characters. The advocates of Consolidation considered the Union a National Government – in other words, a centralized power – to which the several States occupied the relation of separate provinces.
The famous resolutions of ’98, adopted respectively by the Virginia and Kentucky Legislatures, were the formal declarations of principles upon which the States’ Rights party was distinctly organized under Mr. Jefferson, whom it successfully supported for the Presidency against the elder Adams at the expiration of the term of the latter. With the progress of time the practical significance of these opposing principles became more and more apparent, and their respective followers strove, with constantly-increasing energy, to make their party creed paramount in the policy of the Government. A majority of the Northern people embraced the idea of a perpetual Union, whose authority was supreme over all the States, and regulated by the will of a numerical majority, which majority, it should be observed, they had already secured, and were yearly increasing in an enormous ratio. The South, in the course of years, with even more unanimity, clung to the idea of State Sovereignty, and the interpretation of the Government as one of limited powers, as its shield and bulwark against the Northern majority in the collision which it was foreseen the aggressive spirit of the latter would eventually occasion.
A common and totally erroneous impression of the Northern mind is that John C. Calhoun invented the idea of State Sovereignty for selfish and unpatriotic designs, and as the pretext of a morbid hatred to the Union. That eminent statesman and sincere patriot never asserted any claim to the paternity of the faith which he professed. It is true that, in a certain sense, he was the founder of the States’ Rights party as it existed in his day, and which survived him to make a last unsuccessful struggle to save first the Union, and, failing in that, to rescue the imperiled liberties of the South. During the eventful life of Mr. Calhoun the question of the relative powers of the Federal and State Governments assumed a more practical bearing than before, and his far-reaching sagacity was illustrated in his efforts to avert the impending evils of consolidation. He was the authoritative exponent and revered leader of the votaries of those principles which he advocated, but did not originate or invent, and sought to apply as the legitimate and safe solution of the circumstances by which he was surrounded.
Equally absurd and unfounded with the pretense, asserted at the North, of the novelty of the idea of State Sovereignty and its incompatibility with the spirit of the Constitution, was the charge so persistently iterated against Mr. Calhoun and his followers, of disunionism; of a restless, morbid discontent, which sought continually revenge for imaginary wrongs in a dissolution of the Union. To the contrary we have the irrefutable arguments of Mr. Calhoun himself in favor of the superior efficacy of the States’ Rights interpretation, as an agency for the preservation of the Union as it was designed to exist by its authors. So far from having an anarchical or disorganizing tendency, he, on all occasions, maintained that his theory was “the only solid foundation of our system and the Union itself.”
To this faith the public life of Jefferson Davis has been dedicated. For more than twenty years he sought to illustrate it in the realization of a splendid but barren vision of a time-honored and time-strengthened Union, consecrated in the common affections and joint aspirations of a people, now, alas! united only in name.
During the period of their public service together, Mr. Davis received a large share of the confidence and regard of Mr. Calhoun, and when the death of the latter deprived the South of the counsels of an illustrious public servant, Mr. Davis, though comparatively a young man, stood foremost as heir to the mantle of the great apostle of States’ Rights.4
CHAPTER II
The Presidential canvass of 1844 was one of the most memorable and exciting in the annals of American politics. By its results the popular verdict was rendered upon vital questions involved in the administrative and legislative policy of the Government. The Democratic party was fully committed to the annexation of Texas, with the prospect of war with Mexico as an almost inevitable condition of the acquisition of that immense territory, desirable to the Union at large, but especially popular with the South, for obvious and sufficient reasons. But apart from the signal victory
Dr. Craven relates the following incident, which is an impressive illustration of the depth and intensity of Mr. Davis’ veneration for the character of Mr. Calhoun:
“General Miles observed, interrogatively, that it was reported that John C. Calhoun had made much money by speculations, or favoring the speculations of his friends, connected with this work (the Rip-Raps, near Fortress Monroe).
“In a moment Mr. Davis started to his feet, betraying much indignation by his excited manner and flushed cheek. It was a transfiguration of friendly emotion. The feeble and wasted invalid and prisoner, suddenly forgetting his bonds – forgetting his debility, and ablaze with eloquent anger against this injustice to the memory of one he loved and reverenced. Mr. Calhoun, he said, lived a whole atmosphere above any sordid or dishonest thought – was of a nature to which even a mean act was impossible. It was said in every Northern paper that he (Mr. Davis) had carried with him five millions in gold when quitting Richmond – money pilfered from the treasury of the Confederate States; and that there was just as much truth in that as in these imputations against Calhoun… Calhoun was a statesman, a philosopher, in the true sense of that grossly-abused term – an enthusiast of perfect liberty in representative and governmental action.” —