The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

The President of the Confederate States of America presents his side of the story. The Preface begins: "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." According to Wikipedia: "Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 - December 6, 1889) was an American politician who served as President of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. Senator from Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union. Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861, after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed President of the Confederate States of America. He was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the larger, more industrially developed Union. Davis' insistence on independence, even in the face of crushing defeat, prolonged the war. After Davis was captured in 1865, he was charged with treason, though not convicted, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was removed in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee."