A Short History of the Confederate States of America

“… the war, on the part of the Government of the United States, was a war of aggression and usurpation; and on the part of the South was for the defence of an inherent and unalienable right…”/

The Civil War was one of the most defining eras in the history of the United States of America. 

The conflict developed as a result of complicated and intertwined political, economic, and social circumstances. 

This period in American history tends to be told from the view of the victors — how the Union, following the lead of President Abraham Lincoln, reclaimed those states attempting to secede and brought them back into the fold. 

Far less often is the conflict depicted by the vanquished. 

Written by Jefferson Davis, who served as the Confederate States’ president during the entirety of its existence, A Short History of the Confederate States of America tells the story of the secession of the southern states from the Union. 

The tale begins with the circumstances leading to secession, through the Civil War and on to the surrender of the Southern armies and the capture of President Davis.

Davis sets out a case for establishing the constitutional right of secession and the violation of such rights by the government of the United States of America. 

The Union’s unwillingness to acknowledge such constitutional infringement and rectify the matter resulted, Davis explains, in secession proving to be the only viable course of action for southern, slave-holding states who sought to protect themselves.

Published in 1890, twenty-five years after the end of the Civil War, Davis’s account reveals a version of the events of the Civil War that is rarely seen. 

Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was born in Kentucky, and is best known for serving as the President of the Confederate States of America between 1862 and 1865. Prior to the secession of the South, he held positions as a US Representative and Senator and as the 23rd US Secretary of War. He was captured at the end of the Civil War, indicted for treason, and imprisoned for two years, but was released without trial. In 1881 he wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, followed by A Short History of the Confederate States of America in 1890. He died a few months after the book’s completion of acute bronchitis complicated by malaria.