Query: Jefferson Davis grew up in the United States.

Relevant passages:
Mississippi <=SEP=> Mississippi -LSB- mɪsᵻˈsɪpi -RSB- is a state in the southern region of the United States , with part of its southern border formed by the Gulf of Mexico . Its western border is formed by the Mississippi River .   The state has a population of approximately 3 million . It is the 32nd most extensive and the 32nd most populous of the 50 United States . Located in the center of the state , Jackson is the state capital and largest city , with a population of approximately 175,000 people .   The state is heavily forested outside of the Mississippi Delta area , between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers . Before the American Civil War , most development in the state was along riverfronts , where slaves worked on cotton plantations . After the war , the bottomlands to the interior were cleared , mostly by freedmen . By the end of the 19th century , African Americans made up two-thirds of the Delta 's property owners , but timber and railroad companies acquired much of the land after a financial crisis .   Clearing altered the Delta 's ecology , increasing the severity of flooding along the Mississippi . Much land is now held by agribusinesses . A largely rural state with agricultural areas dominated by industrial farms , Mississippi is ranked low or last among the states in such measures as health , educational attainment , and median household income . The state 's catfish aquaculture farms produce the majority of farm-raised catfish consumed in the United States .   Since the 1930s and the Great Migration , Mississippi has been majority white , albeit with the highest percentage of black residents of any U.S. state . From the early 19th century to the 1930s , its residents were mostly black , a population that before the American Civil War was composed largely of African slaves . Whites retained political power through Jim Crow laws . In the first half of the 20th century , nearly 400,000 rural blacks left the state for work and opportunities in northern and midwestern cities , with another wave of migration around World War II to West Coast cities . In 2010 , 37 % of Mississippians were African Americans , the highest percentage of African Americans in any U.S. state . Since gaining enforcement of their voting franchise in the late 1960s , most African Americans support Democratic candidates in local , state and national elections . Conservative whites have shifted to the Republican Party . African Americans are a majority in many counties of the Mississippi-Yazoo Delta , an area of historic settlement during the plantation era . Since 2011 Mississippi has been ranked as the most religious state in the country .

Louisiana <=SEP=> Louisiana ( -LSB- luːziˈænə -RSB- Louisiana French : La Louisiane , -LSB- la lwizjɑ̃n -RSB- or -LSB- la luzjɑ̃n -RSB- Louisiana Creole : Léta de la Lwizyàn ; Standard French État de Louisiane , -LSB- lwizjan -RSB- ) is a state located in the southern region of the United States . Louisiana is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States . Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans . Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes , which are the local government 's equivalent to counties . The largest parish by population is East Baton Rouge Parish , and the largest by total area is Plaquemines . Louisiana is bordered by Arkansas to the north , Mississippi to the east , Texas to the west , and the Gulf of Mexico to the south .   Much of the state 's lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River , leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh and swamp . These contain a rich southern biota ; typical examples include birds such as ibis and egrets . There are also many species of tree frogs , and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish . In more elevated areas , fire is a natural process in the landscape , and has produced extensive areas of longleaf pine forest and wet savannas . These support an exceptionally large number of plant species , including many species of orchids and carnivorous plants . Louisiana has more Native American tribes than any other southern state , including four that are federally recognized , ten that are state recognized , and four that have not yet received recognition .   Some Louisiana urban environments have a multicultural , multilingual heritage , being so strongly influenced by a mixture of 18th-century French , Spanish , Native American , Asian and African cultures that they are considered to be exceptional in the US . Before the American purchase of the territory in 1803 , the current Louisiana State had been both a French colony and for a brief period , a Spanish one . In addition , colonists imported numerous African people as slaves in the 18th century . Many came from peoples of the same region of West Africa , thus concentrating their culture . In the post-Civil War environment , Anglo-Americans increased the pressure for Anglicization , and in 1921 , English was for a time made the sole language of instruction in Louisiana schools before a policy of multilingualism was revived in 1974 . There has never been an official language in Louisiana , and the state constitution enumerates `` the right of the people to preserve , foster , and promote their respective historic , linguistic , and cultural origins , '' whether English , French , Spanish , or otherwise .

Jefferson Davis <=SEP=> Jefferson Finis Davis ( June 3 , 1808 -- December 6 , 1889 ) was an American politician who was a Democratic U.S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi , the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War , and the President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War . He took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the more populous and industrialized Union . His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country , and at home , the collapsing Confederate economy forced his government to print more and more paper money to cover the war 's expenses , leading to runaway inflation and devaluation of the Confederate dollar .   Davis was born in Kentucky to a moderately prosperous farmer , and grew up on his older brother Joseph 's large cotton plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana . Joseph Davis also secured his appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point . After graduating , Jefferson Davis served six years as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army . He fought in the Mexican -- American War ( 1846 -- 1848 ) , as the colonel of a volunteer regiment . He served as the U.S. Secretary of War from 1853 to 1857 under President Franklin Pierce , and as a Democratic U.S. senator from Mississippi . Before the war , he operated a large cotton plantation in Mississippi but never owned more than 74 slaves . After the war had ended , he remained a proud apologist for the cause of slavery for which he and the Confederacy had fought . Although Davis argued against secession in 1858 , he believed that each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union .   Davis 's first wife , Sarah Knox Taylor , died of malaria after three months of marriage , and he also struggled with recurring bouts of the disease . He was unhealthy for much of his life . At the age of 36 , Davis married again , to 18-year-old Varina Howell , a native of Natchez who had been educated in Philadelphia and had some family ties in the North . They had six children . Only two survived him , and only one married and had children .   Many historians attribute the Confederacy 's weaknesses to the poor leadership of President Davis . His preoccupation with detail , reluctance to delegate responsibility , lack of popular appeal , feuds with powerful state governors and generals , favoritism toward old friends , inability to get along with people who disagreed with him , neglect of civil matters in favor of military ones , and resistance to public opinion all worked against him . Historians agree he was a much less effective war leader than his Union counterpart Abraham Lincoln . After Davis was captured in 1865 , he was accused of treason and imprisoned at Fort Monroe . He was never tried and was released after two years . While not disgraced , Davis had been displaced in ex-Confederate affection after the war by his leading general , Robert E. Lee . Davis wrote a memoir entitled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government , which he completed in 1881 . By the late 1880s , he began to encourage reconciliation , telling Southerners to be loyal to the Union . Ex-Confederates came to appreciate his role in the war , seeing him as a Southern patriot , and he became a hero of the Lost Cause in the post-Reconstruction South .