National Archives
Jefferson Davis photo by Matthew Brady
Jefferson Davis photo by Matthew Brady
Lately, in regard to the investigation of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, pundits and reporters in the mainstream press have called the likely prosecution of a former U.S. president, “unprecedented.” This public handwringing by prominent media commentators and politicians is due to a misunderstanding of the American Civil War’s aftermath. While most high school history books have a section on this nation’s bloodiest conflict, it usually ends with Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the panel’s Republican vice chairwoman, said during her opening remarks on Dec. 19 when the January 6 Committee issued its final report, noted that every president in American history has defended the orderly transfer of power, “except one.” This is technically true but only if you exclude Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America.
When you look at the timeline of the Civil War, Lincoln was elected to become the 16th president of the United States in 1860 and was inaugurated in 1861. His election was a sectional victory, winning none of the southern states. This was the final straw for many Southerners, as they feared that his presidency would result in the ending of their way of life-based on slavery.
On Dec. 20, 1860, six weeks after Lincoln’s election as president, South Carolina’s leaders met in the banquet and concert hall of the St. Andrew’s Society and voted to secede from the United States. President James Buchanan declared the act illegal, as did President-elect Lincoln, but it did not quell the tide. Mississippi was next to secede, on Jan. 9, 1861, followed the next day by Florida and by Alabama the day after that. By Feb. 1, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had all seceded. But the states of the upper south remained in the Union, with Virginians voting two-to-one against secession just eight days before the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
And for the next five years, Americans fought and killed each other, resulting in 750,000 dead. Yet in the end, after the South surrendered there was just one leader of that insurrection who was arrested and charged with treason — CSA president Jeff Davis.
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When the Confederacy was defeated in 1865, Davis was captured, accused of treason, and imprisoned at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. A famous Boston lawyer, Richard Henry Dana Jr. (the same one from Two Years Before the Mast), was called in to prosecute him, but he was never actually tried and was released after two years. The problem then, as it is now, was that the country was divided and this was “unprecedented.” Treason in those days would have been dealt with by hanging or firing squad.
Yet, Davis’ legacy is intertwined with his role as president of the Confederacy.
Immediately after the war, he was often blamed for the Confederacy’s loss much as Donald Trump is being blamed for the recent midterm election losses. After he was released, he was seen as a man who suffered unjustly for his commitment to the South, becoming a hero of the pseudo-historical Lost Cause of the Confederacy during the post-Reconstruction era. If some of this begins to sound like the lost cause of the “stolen election” of 2020 and the perpetual victimization Trump claims, then you’re right.
Also, during the aftermath of the war another insurrectionist, Nathan Bedford Forrest, a prominent Confederate Army general, became the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan, with Forrest at the lead, suppressed voting rights of Black people in the South through violence and intimidation during the elections of 1868. In 1869, Forrest expressed disillusionment with the lack of discipline in the white supremacist terrorist group across the South and yet his legacy and statues persisted until recently.
Clearly, the inability of the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute both Davis and Forrest for insurrection or treason for their actions during the Civil War had long-lasting effects—effects that continue to haunt this nation to this very day. As we all witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021, there were many Confederate battle flags flown next to the Trump ones and this stands as the unique moment in which the inheritors of the Confederacy actually invaded the U.S. Capitol and threatened the Union. This cannot stand unindicted this time. Donald J. Trump lost the election and conspired to overthrow the government by fraud, deceit and dereliction, inspiring if not orchestrating violent insurrection.
There should be no apprehension of bringing charges against him and his co-conspirators expeditiously. We should have no doubt that if justice cannot be meted out now that this will be the precedent for the future.What is one of the most prescient quotes from this era is surprisingly by 18th President Ulysses S. Grant, who reflected:
If we are to have another contest in the near future of our national existence, I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixon’s but between patriotism and intelligence on the one side, and superstition, ambition and ignorance on the other.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Jefferson Davis’ legacy as the Confederate president leader was celebrated and memorialized across the South, as were other Confederate leaders. In the 21st century, however, he is frequently criticized as a supporter of slavery and racism, and a number of the memorials created in his honor throughout the country have been removed. No such legacy should ever be afforded Trump except for a residency in federal prison and the American media who report on this should go back and read the history.
This article was contributed to the Shepherd Express courtesy of Random Lengths News, a progressive media organization affiliated with the nationwide network of alternative newspapers.
