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Jeff Sondergaard, age 13, of Lake Charles, La., for his question:

WAS JEFFERSON DAVIS A POPULAR PRESIDENT?

Jefferson Davis served as president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. He was not popular with the people of the South during the war, but he won their respect and affection after the war through his suffering in prison and also through his lifelong defense of the Southern cause.

Davis was a statesman with wide experience. He had served in the United States House of Representatives and in the United States Senate. He had also been a cabinet member. In addition, Davis won distinction as a soldier.

Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808. His father was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. At the age of 16, Davis entered the U.S. Military Academy and was graduated in 1828.

Davis' Army career took him to the Wisconsin frontier where he fought in campaigns against the Indians. After he resigned from the Army in 1835, he married the daughter of his commander, Col. Zachary Taylor, who later became a general and President of the United States.

Davis and his bride settled down to life on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, but within three months both he and his wife became ill with fever and Mrs. Davis died. Davis traveled for a year while he regained his strength and he studied history, economics, political philosophy and the Constitution of the United States.

In 1845 he was elected as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representative but resigned a year later to become a colonel in a regiment of Mississippi volunteers in the Mexican War.

In 1847, the governor of Mississippi appointed Davis to fill out the term of a U.S. senator who had died. The next year he was elected for the rest of the term and in 1850 for a full term. In 1853, President Franklin Pierce appointed Davis secretary of war.

After Abraham Lincoln was elected President, Davis returned to Mississippi where he was named provisional president of the Confederacy in 1861 and inaugurated as regular president in 1862.

Davis was probably not the wisest choice for president. His health was poor. Although he was a good administrator, he proved to be a poor planner. He had difficulties with his Congress and bitter critics condemned his management of the war.

Yet Davis acted with dignity, sincerity and strict devotion to the constitutional pbinciple.

Soon after Gen. Robert Lee surrendered, Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe. A grand jury indicted him for treason and he was held in prison two years awaiting trial. Horace Greeley and other Northerners became his bondsmen in 1867 and he was released on bail. He was never tried.

Davis spent his last years writing and studying at his home at Biloxi, Miss. He eventually won the admiration of his fellow Southerners. He died in 1889 at the age of 81.

Davis' birthday, June 1, is a legal holiday in seven Southern states. Louisiana celebrates it as Confederate Memorial Day and Kentucky celebrates it both as Confederate Memorial Day and as Davis' birthday.

 

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