The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government
Encyclopedia
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government is a book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 written by Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Davis , also known as Jeff Davis, was an American statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as President for its entire history. He was born in Kentucky to Samuel and Jane Davis...

, President
President of the Confederate States of America
The President of the Confederate States of America was the Head of State and Head of Government of the Confederate States of America, which was formed from the states which declared their secession from the United States, thus precipitating the American Civil War. The only person to hold the...

 of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...

 during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Davis wrote the book as a straightforward history of the Confederate States of America and as an apologia for the causes that he believed led to and justified the American Civil War. Most of the book was written at Beauvoir
Beauvoir (Biloxi, Mississippi)
Beauvoir is the historic post-war home and Presidential library of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, begun in 1848 at Biloxi, Mississippi. The main house and library were badly damaged, and other outbuildings were destroyed during Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005...

, the Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi, Mississippi
Biloxi is a city in Harrison County, Mississippi, in the United States. The 2010 census recorded the population as 44,054. Along with Gulfport, Biloxi is a county seat of Harrison County....

 home where he lived as a guest of novelist Sarah Ellis Dorsey
Sarah Dorsey
Sarah Dorsey was an American novelist and historian.-Biography:Born Sarah Anne Ellis to Thomas George Percy Ellis and Mary Malvina Routh in Natchez, Mississippi, she became a novelist and historian. She was known as the "companion" of Jefferson Davis, to whom she proved a great boon in his...

 and which she later leased and eventually bequeathed to him. He was assisted by several people in its formulation, most notably his wife, Varina, his secretary Major W.T. Walthall, and Mrs. Dorsey, and corresponded voluminously with surviving Confederate statesmen and generals including Judah Benjamin and Jubal Early for fact checking and details on key issues, though it is believed that the writing of the book was done primarily by Davis himself.

Publication

The book was released in 1881 by the Utah publisher D. Appleton & Co
D. Appleton & Company
D. Appleton & Company was an American company founded by Daniel Appleton , who opened a general store which included books.- Timeline :* 1813 Relocated from Haverhill to Boston and imported books from England...

. in a two volume edition totalling more than 1,500 pages and with many engraved illustrations.

Critical response

Critical response to the book was initially and continues to be very mixed. Not surprisingly the most lavish praise upon the books release came from southern
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 reviewers, an exception being Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 who pronounced it a masterpiece (though he only skimmed many of the military portions). Most historians and literary critics agree that the book could have benefited from editing as Davis spared little detail in describing every aspect of the Confederate constitution
Confederate States Constitution
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America was the supreme law of the Confederate States of America, as adopted on March 11, 1861 and in effect through the conclusion of the American Civil War. The Confederacy also operated under a Provisional Constitution from February 8, 1861 to March...

 and government often in more minutiae than most readers cared for, in addition to which he retold in detail numerous military campaigns for which there were already many and superior sources (many written by generals and other veterans of the campaign); Davis defended the detailed military accounts in the book itself by explaining that unlike most nations the entire history of the Confederate States of America was inseparable from the story of a war.

Content

Far more compelling in the views of Davis's contemporaries and to modern scholars were Davis's thoughtfully constructed arguments as to the constitutional and moral justification of the formation of the Confederacy and of the Civil War. Davis made many comparisons between the formation of the Continental Congress
Continental Congress
The Continental Congress was a convention of delegates called together from the Thirteen Colonies that became the governing body of the United States during the American Revolution....

 and the American Revolution
American Revolution
The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

 and the formation of the Confederate States and the American Civil War, seeing them as being little different ethically or politically save that the former resulted in victory for the rebels and the latter for defeat. He discussed the history of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...

, his belief in the hypocrisy of northern states with regard to the practice considering that most northern states had once allowed slavery and that all derived major income from trade goods produced by slaves, and the unfairness that he (and most other Southerners) saw in the numerous acts and policies that benefited northern industrialists to the detriment of Southern planters. Davis cited numerous constitutional passages, constitutional scholars, and American political leaders to prove his thesis that secession was justified, even including a speech by Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...

 who had argued for the illegality of the American war with Mexico and condemned United States military interference with the rights of Mexicans to self-govern.

Impact on Jefferson Davis

By the time of the book's publication the once wealthy Davis was elderly, in ill health, and nearly penniless due to the destruction of his estates, the abolition of slavery, and the collapse of the southern economy during and after the Civil War and thus hoped the books would help him in rebuilding his fortune and providing for his family, but while exact figures are disputed the book was a financial disappointment during his own lifetime for several reasons. The title was expensive and thus beyond the reach of many Americans, and Davis refused to go on publicity tours that might aid sales, citing his poor health, his unwillingness to see Southerners pay money they could not afford, and his disinterest in the book's reception by non southerners. Also, sixteen years after the end of the Civil War interest had begun to wane in the subject as a new generation of Americans who had not fought in the war became larger and those who had were faced with contemporary problems that were more pressing than the past. The book was far from a complete failure, selling more than 22,000 copies by 1890, but it was never on par with such 1880s bestsellers as The memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant
The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant is an autobiography of American President Ulysses S. Grant, focused mainly on the general's actions during the American Civil War. Written as Grant was dying of throat cancer in 1885, the two-volume set was published by Mark Twain shortly after Grant's death...

 or Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In addition there was much contention between author and publisher with Davis, who having no prior experience in literary matters had not signed a particularly generous contract to begin with, claiming that Appleton was withholding his full royalties, with D. Appleton & Co. stating that the advances disbursed Davis during the books writing had consumed most of his royalties for the first few years, and both sides seeming to suspect Major Walthall (who was out of Davis's employ by the time the book was released) of financial improprieties with the advances. Davis filed suit against the publisher in the final year of his life in a case later settled out of court by his heirs shortly after his death. The book remained in print and subsequent cheaper printings assisted it in selling well in the decades following Davis's death, thus providing some income for his widow in her final years, though her employment as an editorial writer and a modest income from rental of remaining family properties provided the mainstay of any financial comfort she enjoyed.

External links

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