The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1881-02-24
miscellaneous.
JEFF DAVIS
APPEARS IN BOOK FORM, AND
GIVES A HISTORY OF THE

HleuI n heVeW VI the 5tfuggie FFOm
Confederate Standpoint some Valua-
Bile Facts Disclosed Concerning
Fierce DIssensiOns in COnfed.
crate Councils.
The daily papers make public the
topics discussed by Jefferson Davis in
his history, "The Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government" soon to be
issued. Mr.. Davis's introduction is a
short one, covering not quite two pages
He dedicates the work to the widows
and orphans Of the Confederate dead
He Conceives it to be his duty to his
Countrymen to prepare this history of
the rise and failure of their cause. He
finds in the structure of the thirteen
States and their relations to each other
primary principles and vested rights on
which he rests his vindication of Confed.
eracy. He evinCes the doctrine of States
sovereignty and compact by which
States voluntarily gave their consent to
federation with no design expressed or
implied ever to become fractional parts
or nation and he believes that those
who resisted the violation of this origi
nal compact were in fact the true friends
OF constitutional union.
The author, in discussing the prinCi.
pies and events in their natural and log
ical order, first gives his attention to
African servitude and the long and bit.
ter sectional strife to which it gave rise.
He then takes up the question of States
rights, giving constitutional and histor-
iCal arguments on which he rests the
principle of State sovereignty, and quot
ing Copiously from all authorities on the
subject. These questions and full state
ment of the immediate causes Of the war
occupy one.half of the first volume. The
remainder of the work is given to the
narrative of the struggle, including the
fullest statement yet written from
Southern standpoint of fierce dissensions
in Confederate councils and of his de.
Tense of the prolongation of the war for
many months after many of the ablest
men in the South we're fully convinced |
that their struggle was hopeless one.
In the opening work he treats of the
early legislation on the subject of slavery. |
He aCquits the South of all responsibility |
for the existence in its midst of the pc. |
Culiar institution and calls attention to |
the fact that Virginia was the first State
to prohibit the importation into it's ter |
ritory of blacks brought to this country |
and reduced to slavery, and that Geor
gia was the first State to incorporate in
its Constitution the prohibition of the
African slave trade, All through the
work he treats of slavery not as the
cause of the war, but only as an incident
of the secession movement. Paramount
to the question he declares was the
equality in territories, and to tie inabil.
ity of the South to maintain its equal
rights in territories and new made States
in the Union. He traces the conflict
which intensified the insult and burst
into open war. While upon this subject
he speaks in condemnatory terms of the
Missouri compromise, which he regards
as the surrender of rights which be-
longed to the South and which it should
have maintained, but after it was adopt
ed he believed it should have been ad.
hered to, and he arraigns the North and
Federal Governments for the failure of
the compromise whicn was practically
repealed by the bills of organization of
the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska
in 1859. 1t will be observed that Mr..
Davis takes occasion to declare, in many
places throughout his work, Ills devotion
to the Constitutional Union. He in.
tanCes speeches which he made in 1851,
during his candidacy for Governor Of
Mississippi, in opposition to Henry s.
Foote. These speeches contained re-
peated declarations of his adherence
and devotion to the Union, and he
affirms that his public deeds were at all
times actuated by this spirit before the
general government began it's violent
enCroaChments on the rights of the
States. 1t was during the Pierce admin
istration that the struggle in Kansas be-
tween the Tree soil and pro.slavery par
ties culninated in bitterness. This
struggle, Mr., Davis finds, was the begin
ming of the immediate cause of the war.
He devotes considerable space to de-
scription of what he calls the usurpa-
tions Of the Federal authorities. Con-
gress, it will be remembered, refused to
recognize tho delegate chosen from Kan.
sas, on the ground that his election by
the pro.slavery party had been procured
by fraud. He regards the appeal of the
Missouri compromise as reopening the
question of slavery in the Territories,
and as preCipitating conflict between
the opposing parties, whiCn was encour-
aged by the Abolitionists of the North,
and which finally compelled the South,
in self-defense, to take decided stand.
He holds the violent Abolitionists large
ly responsible for final breach of the
peace bringing bis history down to the
election of Lincoln, he finds the Federal
Government in the hands of party un-
der which the Southern States could not
live. Lincoln was elected upon plat.
form of resistance to slavery extension,
a party antagonistic to the South, and
believing in the Capitalization of power
in the Federal Government, controlled
by the Executive Department Having
devoted half of the first volume to an
exposition of the causes which led the
South to desire a separation from the
federal government, Mr.. Davis proceeds
in several chapters to defend the right
of secession. In justification of this
right he quotes largely from Webster,
Calhoun, Douglass, Greeley, Seward,
Benton and Clay. In maintaining that
the compact between the States was of
the nature of a confederation, he draws
largely for the basis of his argument