From the first, he was an ardent advocate of the state-rights theory of government, and the right of secession, and for thirteen years he defended these theories in the Senate, gradually emerging as the most capable advocate the South possessed.  That fiery and impulsive people, looking always for a hero to worship, found one in Jefferson Davis, and he soon gained an immense prestige among them.  On January 9, 1861, his state seceded from the Union, and he withdrew from the Senate.  Before he reached home, he was elected commander-in-chief of the Army of the Mississippi, and a few days later, he was chosen President of the Confederate States.

From the first, his task was a difficult one, and it grew increasingly so as the war went on.  That he performed it well, there can be no question.  He was the government, was practically dictator, for he dominated the Confederate Congress absolutely, and its principal business was to pass the laws which he prepared.  Only toward the close of the war did it, in a measure, free itself from this control, and, finally, in 1865, it passed a resolution attributing Confederate disaster to Davis’s incompetency as commander-in-chief, a position which he had insisted on occupying; removing him from that position and conferring it upon General Lee, giving the latter, at the same time, unlimited powers in disposing of the army.

But it was too late.  Even Lee himself could not ward off the inevitable.  On the morning of Sunday, April 2, 1865, Jefferson Davis sat in his pew at church in the city of Richmond, when an officer handed him a telegram.  It was from Lee, and read, “Richmond must be evacuated this evening,” Lee had fought and lost the battle of Petersburg, and was in full retreat.  Davis left the church quietly, called his cabinet together, packed up the government archives, and boarded a train for the South.  For over a month, he moved from place to place endeavoring to escape capture, his party melting away until it comprised only his family and a few servants; and finally, on May 9th, he was surprised and taken by a company of Union cavalry near Irwinsville, in southern Georgia.  Davis was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe for two years—­a thoroughly senseless procedure which only served to keep open a painful wound—­and on Christmas Day, 1868, was pardoned by President Johnson.

Davis’s imprisonment had added immensely to his prestige.  The South forgot his blunders and short-comings, seeing in him only the martyr who had suffered for his people, and welcomed him with a kind of hysterical adoration, which lasted until his death.  The last years of his life were passed quietly on his estate in Mississippi.

When Davis was chosen President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens was chosen Vice-President.  Stephens had also had a picturesque career.  Left an orphan, without means, at the age of fifteen he had nevertheless secured an education, and, in 1834, after two months’ study, was admitted to the Georgia bar.  He at once began to win a more than local reputation, for he was a man of unusual ability, and in 1836, he was elected to the Legislature, though an avowed opponent of nullification.