ABSTRACT
Despite the publication of several modern biographies, Jefferson Davis’s status in the Civil War pantheon shows little sign of improvement. Davis revisionists must surmount a number of serious obstacles, not the least of which is what the historian Clement Eaton-a confirmed supporter-called the Mississippian’s “self-defeating personality.”1 Above all, as we reach the two hundredth anniversary of both men’s birth, the Confederate president’s reputation continues to suffer by comparison with that of his Federal rival, Abraham Lincoln. This is the result not merely of Davis belonging to the wrong side, but also because of the uninspiring manner in which he characteristically expressed himself. Nothing that Davis said or wrote during his four years as Confederate leader resonates in the way of countless Lincoln utterances. As David Potter memorably concluded, Jefferson Davis “seemed to think in abstractions and to speak in platitudes.”2
