How did Presidents Davis and Lincoln deal with political opposition to the war?
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The Journal of Southern History Vol. 36, No. 2 (May, 1970) , pp. 189-204 (16 pages) Published By: Southern Historical Association https://doi.org/10.2307/2205870 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2205870 This is a preview. Log in to get access Journal Information The Journal of Southern History, which is edited at and sponsored by Rice University, is a quarterly devoted to the history of the American South and is unrestricted as to chronological period, methodology, or southern historical topic. The Journal publishes refereed articles and solicited book reviews and book notes on all aspects of southern history. As the organ of the Southern Historical Association, which is headquartered in the Department of History at the University of Georgia, the Journal also publishes items pertaining to the business of the Association as well as news and notices of interest to historians of and in the South. The purpose of the Southern Historical Association is to encourage the study of history in the South with an emphasis on the history of the South. Publisher Information The Southern Historical Association was organized on November 2, 1934 and charged with promoting an "investigative rather than a memorial approach" to southern history. Its objectives are the promotion of interest and research in southern history, the collection and preservation of the South's historical records, and the encouragement of state and local historical societies in the South. As a secondary purpose the Association fosters the teaching and study of all areas of history in the South. The Association holds an annual meeting, usually in the first or second week of November, and publishes The Journal of Southern History. Rights & Usage This item is part of a JSTOR
Collection. At the end of the Civil War, this bill created a framework for Reconstruction and the re-admittance of the Confederate states to the Union. In late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln and Congress began to consider the question of how the Union would be reunited if the North won the Civil War. In December, President Lincoln proposed a reconstruction program that would allow Confederate states to establish new state governments after 10 percent of their male population took loyalty oaths and the states recognized the permanent freedom of formerly enslaved people. Several congressional Republicans thought Lincoln’s 10 percent plan was too lenient. Senator Benjamin F. Wade, of Ohio, and Representative Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, proposed a more stringent plan in February 1864. The Wade-Davis Reconstruction Bill would also have abolished slavery, but it required that 50 percent of a state's White males take a loyalty oath to the United States (and swear they had never assisted the Confederacy) to be readmitted to the Union. Only after taking this "Ironclad Oath" would they be able to participate in conventions to write new state constitutions. Congress passed the Wade-Davis Bill, but President Lincoln chose not to sign it, killing the bill with a pocket veto. Lincoln continued to advocate tolerance and speed in plans for the reconstruction of the Union in opposition to Congress. After Lincoln’s assassination in April 1865, however, Congress had the upper hand in shaping federal policy toward the defeated South and imposed the harsher reconstruction requirements first advocated in the Wade-Davis Bill. Jefferson Davis, the first and only president of the Confederate States of America, was a Southern planter, Democratic politician and hero of the Mexican-American War who represented Mississippi in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. He also served as U.S. secretary of war (1853-57). Davis was chosen to serve as president of the Confederacy in 1861 and held the post until the Civil War ended in 1865. WATCH: Civil War Documentaries on HISTORY Vault Early LifeBorn Jefferson Finis Davis in Kentucky in 1808 and raised in Mississippi, he was the 10th and youngest child in his family. His parents gave him the middle name Finis, meaning “final” in Latin. Davis was greatly influenced by his oldest brother, Joseph, a wealthy lawyer and planter who served as a father figure, particularly after their father’s death in 1824. Davis left his studies at Transylvania University in Kentucky that year to enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where Joseph’s connection had secured him an appointment. Davis graduated four years later, finishing in the bottom third of his class; he was posted to an infantry regiment in Wisconsin. After serving only briefly in the Black Hawk War in 1832, he fell in love with Sarah Knox Taylor, the daughter of Colonel Zachary Taylor. The couple contracted malaria just months after their wedding in 1835, and Sarah died. Having resigned his army commission, Davis retreated to his cotton plantation, Brierfield, built on land provided by his brother Joseph at Davis Bend, Mississippi. After eight years immersed in plantation life, Davis emerged to begin a career in politics. A steadfast supporter of state’s rights and slavery, he served as a delegate to the Democratic state convention in 1840 and 1842 and ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature in 1843. ChildrenIn 1845, Davis married his second wife, Varina Howell, the young daughter of a prominent local family. The couple would have six children—four sons and two daughters—though only their daughters lived until adulthood. That same year, Davis won election to the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi. It was the only electoral success of his career; all of his later posts would be appointed. Mexican-American War ServiceWhen the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846, Davis resigned his congressional seat to serve as colonel of the First Mississippi Rifle regiment. As part of a force commanded by his former father-in-law, Davis distinguished himself in battle at Monterrey and Buena Vista. General Taylor’s praise of his heroism earned Davis national acclaim, and in August 1847 the Mississippi governor chose him to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate. Scroll to Continue Davis as Senator and Secretary of WarAs a senator, Davis fiercely defended the interests of the South in the growing sectional battle over slavery that would put the nation on the path to division and civil war. He led a generation of southern Democrats who joined the proslavery crusade launched by John C. Calhoun, and continued it after Calhoun’s death in 1850. A strong supporter of Manifest Destiny, Davis advocated for the extension of slavery into the new Western territories and the protection of slaveholders’ property rights. He opposed letting the Oregon territory bar slavery, and battled against the Compromise of 1850, especially the admission of California to the Union as a free state. In 1851, Davis resigned from the Senate to run unsuccessfully for governor of Mississippi. Two years later, President Franklin Pierce appointed Davis as secretary of war. During his tenure, Davis focused on increasing the army’s size and improving national defenses and weapons technology, as well as providing protection for settlers in the Western territories. WATCH: Jefferson Davis From the Senate to the ConfederacyDavis returned to the Senate in 1857. He frequently clashed with fellow Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, arguing that Douglas’ doctrine of popular sovereignty didn’t do enough to protect the rights of slaveholders. With the Democratic Party split between North and South, Republican Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election of 1860. Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861, after Mississippi seceded from the Union. When the Confederate Congress met in Montgomery, Alabama the following month, it unanimously chose Davis—the Southern leader with the most impressive political and military record—as president of the Confederacy. Over the next four years, Davis struggled to balance his leadership role in the Civil War with the difficult domestic tasks involved with running a country. Like Lincoln, he faced epic clashes with his generals, state lawmakers and Congress, but he lacked the economic and military resources of his Northern counterpart. Davis’ critics charged him with neglecting state’s rights in his efforts to form a more effective central government, favoring certain military leaders (like Braxton Bragg) despite their shortcomings, and sidelining those who disagreed with him, including Joseph E. Johnston. Post-War Imprisonment and Later LifeOn April 2, 1865, Davis and the rest of the Confederate government fled Richmond as the Union Army advanced on the Confederate capital. Union soldiers captured Davis near Irwinville, Georgia, on May 10, and he was imprisoned for two years at Fort Monroe in Virginia. Indicted but never tried for treason, Davis was released on bond in May 1867. Davis’ emotional and physical health had deteriorated during his time in prison. After two years traveling in Europe, he and his family returned to Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked for a life insurance company. In 1876, they returned to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where an admirer named Sarah Dorsey let them use a cottage on her seaside plantation near Biloxi. When Dorsey died, she willed the estate, Beauvoir, to Davis and his family. He would live there for the rest of his life, publishing his account of the war in a two-volume memoir titled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government in 1881. In December 1889, Davis died of acute bronchitis in New Orleans. Some 200,000 people lined that city’s streets for his funeral, held in Metairie Cemetery. In 1893, Davis’ body was relocated and reinterred in Hollywood Cemetery, located in the former Confederate capital of Richmond. SourcesCivil War: Biography: Jefferson Davis.
American Battlefield Trust. How did Lincoln and Davis deal with political dissent?How did Lincoln and Davis deal with political dissent? Suspending habeas corpus, which is a court order that requires authorities to bring a person held in jail before the court to determine why he or she is being jailed to enforce dissent.
How did Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis compare as presidents?On the brighter side, Lincoln was dubbed as an effective president despite his lack of military experience. But Davis was seen as having the greater inclination of becoming a leader because of his exposure as a public speaker and his knowledge in public affairs '“ something that Lincoln lacked.
What methods did Lincoln use to suppress popular opposition to the war in the north?He let his generals suspend several newspapers, but only for short periods, and he promptly revoked a military order suppressing the hostile Chicago Times.
What problems did Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis face?Over the next four years, Davis struggled to balance his leadership role in the Civil War with the difficult domestic tasks involved with running a country. Like Lincoln, he faced epic clashes with his generals, state lawmakers and Congress, but he lacked the economic and military resources of his Northern counterpart.
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