Jefferson Davis' speech to the Mississippi Democratic Convention, 1859

[Mushroom]

It has been some time since I've visited here, but my studies of antebellum politics have continued in my absence. I recently had occasion to reference this speech, and discovered that there was no readily available digitized copy, so I found a scan of a newspaper copy of it and have spent the last three days fixing that. So without further ado, the whole, damning document.

With no image of what you repaired, or the source from where it came from?

Sorry, dismissing all of this as a fabrication. Care to provide an actual link to a source we can verify this from?

 

[Mushroom]

Which is is why the United Stares government issued stamps and coins to honor him.

Oh really?

Please give us an example of a single coin or stamp the US Government issued with his likeness on.

 

[LeroyDumonde]

Longest OP EVER. To say TL/dr would be stating the obvious.



Does this have something to do with the Knights of the Golden Circle?

Sorry, there's no way on earth I'm about to read all that.

As far as I know Jefferson Davis was never a member (I'm hardly an expert on them). It's probably just an example of people independently coming to similar ideas.

 

[Libby von H]

There are lots of MAGA Republicans who still think like Alexander Stephans.

YOu were okay until you said something every historian knows is false.

 

[mikegriffith1]

The North was fortunate that the Confederacy made the horrendous mistake of choosing Jefferson Davis as its president. Davis was a decent, honorable man, but he was a terrible chief executive.

The Deep South Fire-Eaters never even gave Lincoln a chance to show how he would govern. They were legally bound to accept the results of the election. The fact that they refused to accept the election and then pushed the Deep South states to secede long before Lincoln had even taken the oath of office put another big black mark on their shameful legacy.

 

[Mushroom]

The North was fortunate that the Confederacy made the horrendous mistake of choosing Jefferson Davis as its president. Davis was a decent, honorable man, but he was a terrible chief executive.

Not really, their biggest problem was at the very start when they decided to create a confederation. The moment they did that, they were doomed.

The US had already played with that form of government, and it was an utter failure. And to be honest, there was not a damned thing Jefferson Davis could have done. That is the very problem in a confederation with a chief executive with no real power. They are largely a figurehead and can do nothing.

Being the President of a Confederation is like being the President of Israel. I bet most are not even aware that they have a President, or what his name is. That is how inconsequential the position is, the Prime Minister is the one that runs the nation. In Russia it used to be the same way, until Putin had the Constitution changed and moved the power of the Prime Minister to the office of President. Now Russia has a powerful President, and a weak and almost ineffective Prime Minister.

But the Confederacy was always doomed, as under a confederation no state had to do anything they did not want to.

 

[DudleySmith]

As far as I know Jefferson Davis was never a member (I'm hardly an expert on them). It's probably just an example of people independently coming to similar ideas.

The uninformed try to claim everybody in the South was in the Klan; it's hogwash. In fact in the 20th Century California, the Midwest, and Long Island, New York had much larger Klan memberships than in the South. They're just babbling fake history in a stupid attempt to smear the South for dumping their Party and going Republican, is all. A cheap gimmick by people who are obviously bigots themselves.


I've already posted on the Black Codes in the Midwest and northern states before the Civil War elsewhere, as well as the fact over 90% of blacks remained in the South after the war, except for the hundreds of thousands who died in Lincoln's 'contraband camps' from starvation and disease epidemics.

 

[LeroyDumonde]

The uninformed try to claim everybody in the South was in the Klan; it's hogwash. In fact in the 20th Century California, the Midwest, and Long Island, New York had much larger Klan memberships than in the South. They're just babbling fake history in a stupid attempt to smear the South for dumping their Party and going Republican, is all. A cheap gimmick by people who are obviously bigots themselves.


I've already posted on the Black Codes in the Midwest and northern states before the Civil War elsewhere, as well as the fact over 90% of blacks remained in the South after the war, except for the hundreds of thousands who died in Lincoln's 'contraband camps' from starvation and disease epidemics.

We were talking about the Knights of the Golden Circle which was different from the Klan and existed years before the Klan did. As I understand it they wanted to conquer a bunch of territory in Central America and enshrine slavery into their Constitution.

 

[DudleySmith]

We were talking about the Knights of the Golden Circle which was different from the Klan and existed years before the Klan did. As I understand it they wanted to conquer a bunch of territory in Central America and enshrine slavery into their Constitution.

It was the fore runner of the KKK.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

The uninformed try to claim everybody in the South was in the Klan …

Maybe some fools say that. But certainly no serious historians.

In fact in the 20th Century California, the Midwest, and Long Island, New York had much larger Klan memberships than in the South. They're just babbling fake history in a stupid attempt to smear the South for dumping their Party and going Republican, is all.

All modern historians emphasize that the the 20h century version of the Klan was deeply based in Congress, in the North and Midwest, that the federal government re-segregated many divisions and jobs then, that the first Southern-born President after the Civil War, the supposedly “progressive liberal” Democrat, Woodrew Wilson, showed “The Birth of a Nation” in the White House, etc., etc.

Your point that excuses for covering up the general racist history of the country in this period is due to the “the stupid attempt [of Democrats] to smear the South for dumping their Party and going Republican is ridiculous modern partisan propaganda. Racism festered nationally after the failure of Reconstruction and the subsequent rise of nostalgic myths about the “Lost Cause” that were so prevalent thru the 1950s — no liberal historian would deny that racism is a national problem. Of course MAGA has brought back many cravings for “the way things were” in earlier times.

The KKK today is also very different than in was in the early 20th century! Both parties have changed dramatically, and in many ways reversed course, since Abraham Lincoln was the great leader of the GOP.

 

[Mushroom]

The KKK today is also very different than in was in the early 20th century!

The Klan of today has almost nothing in common with the early Klan, other than the name.

For example, the original Klan was not anti-Catholic. That was something it picked up in it's move North and adopted to attract the anti-Irish and Italian sentiment that existed in those areas. The same with the anti-Semitism, that was never a part of original Klan beliefs. That was brought in much later, when anti-Semite JB Stoner and White Knights co-founder Samuel Bowers added that in. In short, in order to expand their pools of potential members they would adopt in any prejudice that people had into their beliefs in order to attract even more members.

In the modern era, the Klan much more resembles a Neo-Nazi organization than what it originally was.

 

[DudleySmith]

Your point that excuses for covering up the general racist history of the country in this period is due to the “the stupid attempt [of Democrats] to smear the South for dumping their Party and going Republican is ridiculous modern partisan propaganda.

Nonsense, it's the only reason for bring it all up in modern times, especially when the Democrats have nothing to run on but identity politics and race baiting.

 

[LeroyDumonde]

It was the fore runner of the KKK.

Maybe in a philosophical sense. I don't know if any of the founders of the KKK were in the KGC.

 

[DudleySmith]

Maybe in a philosophical sense. I don't know if any of the founders of the KKK were in the KGC.

The politics got much closer to home by 1860.