In
the years following the end of the American Civil War (1861-1865), seminal
figures of the former Confederate states developed a series of arguments which
were designed and promoted as the reasons why the South felt justified to break
away from the Union. Many of these narratives still linger to this day in the
popular perception of the Civil War, especially as it related to the issue of
slavery. They have become known to the popular imagination as the "Lost
Cause". One of the critical figures who promoted and created this movement
was former Confederate president and former US Senator from Mississippi
Jefferson Davis. In the later years of his life, when his family had lost
everything due to the war, Davis wrote a 1,500 page two volume work titled The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
Government (Davis’ choice of a title was evocative of Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire;
as though the South was somehow reminiscent of the lost grandeur of ancient
Rome). Davis, through his book, ignited the "Lost Cause" fire which
was growing stronger as the end of the war receded further into the past.  |
| MORR 9746 |
Davis’ work has three distinctive
goals: 1. To prove the legality of the South's secession through a constitutional
argument. 2. To prove President Lincoln and Congress overstepped their
boundaries, which were set by the Constitution. 3. To prove the South had been
mistreated in the aftermath of the conflict through the repression of their
rights. In addition to these goals, the book tells the story of how the North
and South became so different from one another. Through his time in the nation's
capital, Davis experienced firsthand the growing divide between the increasingly
industrial North and the agricultural South. Davis himself owned a large farming
plantation with many slaves in his home state of Mississippi in the years leading
up to the war. When the South was defeated, like most landed families, Davis
lost not only his wealth, but his slaves and property.
When someone supports a theory like
the "Lost Cause," they often already have certain views which are
perpetuated by the theory. For example, Davis believed the South had every
right to secede from the Union because the South had voluntarily joined the Union. There was no clause, he argued, in
the Constitution that prohibited seceding. In a separate article that was
published a year after his death, Davis put forth the idea that the Founding
Fathers should or would have put a clause which legalized secession had they
thought the concept through.[1]
His preconceptions allowed him to justify the "Lost Cause" theory.
The legality of the South's
secession, based on a literal interpretation of the Constitution, has become
one of the main pillars of the "Lost Cause" theory. A literal
interpretation is one of many interpretations someone could have of the
Constitution. It means that a person takes the Constitution verbatim. Davis,
like many southerners at the time, saw the Constitution as an agreement between
the federal government and the states. As an example, Davis cited an 1805 event
where South Carolina voluntarily gave up control over forts in Charleston
Harbor and on the Beaufort River. Davis also notes, in 1821, Virginia
voluntarily gave up control over Fort Monroe and the Rip Raps.[2]
Davis then fast forwards to when these states seceded from the Union. He claims
the states had every right to take back these strategic locations because they
were voluntarily given to the federal government in the first place. For him,
this justifies his preconception that the Constitution was a voluntary agreement
between the states and the federal government.
Davis also uses the Constitution to
justify his preconception that the federal government had to defend slavery
rather than trying to abolish it. He points to the Three-Fifths Clause (Article
I, section II), the Importation Clause (Article I, section IX) and the Fugitive
Slave Clause (Article IV, section II) as clear reasons for his preconception.[3] After
the southern states seceded from the Union, Davis again used the Constitution
to justify their actions. He emphasizes the act of secession was used as a
last resort because the Constitution had failed to protect the South from "Northern
aggression". He uses Article IV, section IV to protest the Union's
reaction to southern secession. He also falsifies the Union's claim of
"preserving the union" because the reality was to subjugate the South
to the Union's anti-slavery views. These various pieces of the Constitution,
through Davis' literal interpretation, help complete the legal justifications
for the South's secession.
The mistreatment of southern
civilians as the Union pushed its way further south is another pillar of the
"Lost Cause" theory. Throughout the book, Davis makes it clear that
the innocent civilians of the South had their freedoms purposely trampled on
just because they had supported their state rather than the federal government.
He also makes clear the governments set up by the Union in occupied territory
were illegal because they were not "by and for the people". This meant
these governments could not pass laws, hold election nor approve amendments to
the Constitution. These governments held elections in which only those who had
pro Union opinions could run. No Confederates were involved which upset those
in power in the South immediately after the Civil War. To men like Davis, this
was a clear example of the federal government forcing people to choose loyalty
to the federal government rather than loyalty to their state.
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| Davis' signature, top. |
One of the most interesting pillars
of the "Lost Cause" is the supposed violation of the Constitution by
President Lincoln and Congress. Davis uses the capture of Nashville, Tennessee
as a clear example of this over stepping. When the city was captured in
February 1862, the Union forced all local officials and clergymen to take an
oath of allegiance and those who did not were imprisoned until they did.[4]
This was repeated across Union captured territory. Davis likened this oath of
allegiance as "[invoking] the Constitution was like Satan quoting Scripture".[5]
In addition to mistreatment of
civilians, Davis also points out the Union illegally established governments in
captured territory. This included creating a Union friendly court system and
installing Union generals as military governors. Davis refers back to his
literal interpretation of the Constitution to defend his reaction. He uses
Article IV, section IV to explain the Union did not guarantee the South a
republican form of government by forcing a turnover of captured states'
governments.[6]
He again points to Article IV, section IV when justifying Virginia's right to
protect herself from the Union's invasion. Another violation of Article IV,
under section III, was the forming of West Virginia from Virginia. The people
of Virginia did not consent to the creation of West Virginia because the
federal government did not have the power to interfere with Virginia's laws
because Virginia was a separate power from the federal government.[7]
This also plays off Davis' opinion that the states are a sovereign body independent
of the federal government.
In addition to violating the
Constitution, the federal government, as Davis interpreted matters, passed
several confiscations acts which allowed the Union to confiscate anything that
could aid the Southern cause. This included slaves, property, weapons and raw
materials. Davis and other high ranking Confederate government officials saw
this as an excuse by the Union to plunder the South and kill innocent civilians
and to crush their rights as citizens of the Union.[8]
In the immediate aftermath of the
war, the Union set about readmitting the Southern states. There were many rules
the former Confederacy had to follow. One of the biggest was every public
servant had to take an oath of allegiance. According to Davis, the oath had two
major problems with it. The first was that the person taking it was treated as
though they were not a citizen of the United States. Davis believed that
everyone involved in the war was always and had been citizens of the United
States. The second was the clause which demanded southerners recognize slaves
were now free. This sends Davis into a tirade about how the slaves could not be
freed because they were Southerners' "unalienable right of property"
and the federal government was supposed to protect, not abolish, slavery.[9] Another
obligation the South had to take on was to accept the laws of the Union, which
included the Thirteenth Amendment. Davis cited this as a violation of the
South's rights as independent people. Davis had another issue with the process
the Reconstruction governments the Union had set up. They were run by a general
of the Union army. Military law replaced civilian law. Several years into the Reconstruction,
the decision was made to allow the South to once again have a republican form
of government. There was a catch: freed slaves had to be allowed to vote in the
elections and only those with Union sympathies could run for office. Davis
decried this as a government that was not created by "the free and
unconstrained action of the whole people of a State."[10]
Again, from the separate article, he believes "the only people known to
the system were the people of a State or commonwealth."[11] Davis
saw this as yet another example of the Union forcing their laws down the
throats of innocent Southerners and purposely crushing their freedoms. Davis
suggested an alternative method to readmission: the former Confederate states
could "reconsider their ordinances of secession" and once again
recognized the "Constitution as the supreme law of the land". This
could have allowed the creation of what had existed prior to the war: a
"Union of consent."[12]
The birth of the "Lost
Cause" theory came as the country was trying to move past its bloodiest
moment, the Civil War. Some of those who had led the former Confederate states,
on the battlefield and in politics, created a powerful mythology that is still
being felt today. Jefferson Davis gave the theory the biggest shot in the arm
with his book, but because it was incredibly detailed and repetitive, very few
chose to actually read it. The ideas it suggests, however, gave the "Lost
Cause" a true shape. A shape which has little changed for over one hundred
and fifty years. Many turn to these ideas though when they defend their pro-southern
opinion. These opinions are supported up by preconceptions which have faded
over time, but some still linger to this day. The strongest of these is the
undying support of states' rights. This has become a part of the modern day federalism
argument which calls for a smaller federal government and giving states more
power. Although the racial part of the "Lost Cause" theory has died
out, most of the rest of the opinions have continued to live on in various
iterations.
[1] Davis, Jefferson. "The
Doctrine of State Rights." The North
American Review Vol. 150, No. 399 (Feb. 1890): 205-219 - via Wikisource.
[2] Vol. 1, Part III, Chap. II in
Jefferson Davis Rise and Fall of the
Confederate Government (Urbana, Illinois, Project Gutenberg, 2013), 197-198.
[3] Vol. 1, Part I, Chap. X in
Davis, 82.
[4] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. XXXII in
Davis, 228.
[5] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. XXXII in
Davis, 229.
[6] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. XXXIII in
Davis, 239-240.
[7] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. XXXIII in
Davis, 242.
[8] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. LV in
Davis, 530.
[9] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. LVI in
Davis, 540.
[10] Vol. 2, Part IV, Chap. LVI in
Davis, 541.
[11] Davis, "The Doctrine of State
Rights", 205-219 - via Wikisource.
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