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The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I (Rise & Fall of the Confederate Government)
written by Jefferson Davis
Studio : Da Capo Press
by Da Capo Press
Publisher : Da Capo Press
Released : 1990-08-21
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9780306804182
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 14 reviews)
List Price : $25.95
Our Price : $19.26
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Product Description |
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A decade after his release from federal prison, the 67-year-old Jefferson Davis—ex-president of the Confederacy, the ”Southern Lincoln,” popularly regarded as a martyr to the Confederate cause—began work on his monumental Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. Motivated partially by his deep-rooted antagonism toward his enemies (both the Northern victors and his Southern detractors), partially by his continuing obsession with the “cause,” and partially by his desperate pecuniary and physical condition, Davis devoted three years and extensive research to the writing of what he termed ”an historical sketch of the events which preceded and attended the struggle of the Southern states to maintain their existence and their rights as sovereign communities.” The result was a perceptive two-volume chronicle, covering the birth, life, and death of the Confederacy, from the Missouri Compromise in 1820, through the tumultuous events of the Civil War, to the readmission of the Southern states to the U.S. Congress in the late 1860s. Supplemented with a new historical foreword by the Pulitzer Prize–winning James M. McPherson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I belongs in the library of anyone interested in the root causes, the personalities, and the events of America’s greatest war. |
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Not a Lost Cause but far from a triumph either. |
Jefferson Davis was a decent man, a man of his time, a man upon whom history bequeathed a horrible burden; to lead a people to defeat and virutal ruin in great and bloody war. He had many faults, as all men do, and many great qualities too. But he was a man of his time and any historian trying to judge Davis based on present standards of moral or even political correctness, is being very ignorant.
By the same token, I do not think that James M. McPherson deserves the harsh criticism being levelled at him, by some, for writing the introduction to this work. McPherson wrote and writes incredible material and if he is hard on Davis for Rise and Fall, it is, in my opinion, fair comment.
Rise and Fall is an IMPERFECT work but it is Davis's testimony and final shot across the bow against his critics, north and south, for their malcious judgement of him, and little else. It is a hard read and shows the one-time President of the Confederate States of America doing his best to justify the Cause for which the South took up arms and nearly destroyed the Union. But that, too, is to be expected of a man who felt the weight of history and (justly) remained proud and defensive about those many soldiers, alive, dead, and/or wounded, who fought on at his command during four years of horrible struggle, in a lost war.
For Davis, then, to be expected to admit that the cause the South fought for was 'wrong' is niave of anyone, then and now and in the future. If the South was wrong, those soldiers and the people of the South suffered and died for nothing. But if the South was right, and still lost, then they were simply beat by overwhelming resources and numbers; that is far easier to swallow than the fact that they took up arms to protect slavery, which is and remains the root cause of secession and Civil War, regardless of what anyone else tries to convince themselves of.
Davis, of course, largely ignores this important tidbit, yet it remains the Achilles Heel of every pro-Southern defence of secession and the subsequent war. Instead he focusses on the constitutionality of secession, and states rights. The fact remains, however, that even though most Southerners DID NOT OWN SLAVES, the country they were fighting to defend/create, was founded on the great principle that Black men were not equal to White men and deserved to be in bondage, at least according to Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens.
Whether the common soldier cared about it or not is not the issue; even Robert E. Lee owned no slaves and he stands head and shoulders above virtually all others in that conflict. The Confederacy was created to protect slavery from being abolished and, in the process, actually sped up emancipation by at least two generations. The rest is smoke and mirrors and justifications by Davis and others who share the pro-Southern point of view.
But, again, however, I do not begrudge Davis for it; infact, I rather admire him. His cause was lost, his 'country' overrun and occupied, its manpower depleted, it's property freed or confiscated or destroyed, and yet he still clings to the rightness of it and vehemently defends the memory and honour of those who paid the price to defend it, as well as himself. The trouble is that, without this perspective, Rise and Fall can come across as being very self serving and self-deluding and that's not fair either.
Davis is NOT 'self deluded' nor is he trying to be self-serving either. He is, rather, stubborn and defensive, because he MUST BE; only the victor, after all, has the option of being magnanimous and kind to those whom he has beaten. The loser, however, must stand up and say 'we did not win, but, darn it, we almost did adn we are still right and honourable people' and find ways of defending that against those who would brandish them as evil or immoral.
Davis was not evil, any more than the Southern people were and are, then and now. They were simply on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of fate. Had they prevailed, slavery would still, in all probability, have been abolished and perhaps the Union and Confederacy would have re-united again at a later date, regardless. But the South did not prevail and so Rise and Fall was written, and, perhaps HAD to be written.
It remains, therfore, a fitting testimony, and a dogged defence if not an idictment, by the leader of that lost cause, against those who, even 150 later, would try to defame and shame those who fought in it.
Like Davis, however, it is not a perfect work but it is a very personal work; a labour of love from a leader who had to bear the shame, pride, and honour of being the living embodiment of a people's shattered hopes and dreams (and perhaps the only person who could do so, with such great dignity and grace over the remaining years of his life). By that same token, therefore, it is also an important work and one that I believe has, and deserves, a place honour (like Davis himself) on the shelf of every honest student of Civil War history alive.
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a necessary source for the study of 19th cebtury america |
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Ignore for the time being the fact that this is only the first volume of this work. Search for Vol. II will probably bring one to light certainly at a much higher price. Vol I is the most interesting of the two and offers great insight into the post war mind of Davis. If we want to understand the mind of this period we need to read this book along with the Buchanan expose of his presidency, Butler's Book by B. F. Butler who nominated Davis as Democratic presidential nominee, the Diary of Edmund Ruffin vol I, and many more, npne of which are neutral or even accurate in many ways but if we don't look at the reflections of the participants we are condemned to seeing history only through the eyes of later writers. Forget that McPherson introduces this book and that it is only volume one. It is a necessary and even fairly interesting read. |
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Essential to Understanding the Causes of the Civil War |
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Whether we agree with Jefferson Davis or not, knowledge of his point of view is essential to understanding the causes of the Civil War. The forward by McPherson helps to give balance and explanation. |
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Excellent history & treatise |
This is a work that any one should read concerninig the details of the life and death of the Confederate nation.The principled beliefs those who founded the other American nation are presented.
Jefferson Davis' work is thorough and detailed concerning the his belief in the constitutional basis that secession was legal and that the desire to peacefully seperate was the absolute goal of the southern states. Bear in mind the 4 states of the upper South (AR, NC, TN and VA) did not leave the Union until Lincoln called for forced cohersion of the other southern states.
His work is also quite detailed in the military aspects of the War Between the States and his personal eyewitness of events are well written and easy to read and grasp. A great read! |
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Economical and easily available reprint of a classic |
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This is probably the most accessible reprint of Davis' book on the market today. It's well indexed and available at an economical price. My only complaint is that they got James McPherson, a confederacy-hating Marxist, to write the intro. |
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