What were Jefferson Davis's views on state vs federal rights?

Answer 1

Answer Jeff Davis was all for state rights! I mean, that's the WHOLE REASON the CSA broke off from the Union.

Although afterwards, as acting President of the CSA, Davis suffered from given states too much rights, to were he couldn't get things done because some of the states were bickering between themselves !!!!

Hmmmmm...i bet after the war, he was all for a CENTRAL GOVT.

Another ViewIt amazes me all of you Southern Lost Causer supporters can't or won't get this right. Let me say it again: It was in the CSA's Constitution that NO black man will ever be the equal of a white man. The only "state right" they were ever interested in was the federal government's attempts to stop the spread of slavery and to lessen the balance of power between northern and southern states because of the 3/5 rule. The Civil War was started over the institution of slavery!!! The CSA wanted to keep the social order the way it was, white men on top, black men at the bottom, and somewhere below that white women and black women. Because as I recall, the white men were not too fond of women getting "equal rights" either.

[Editor's note: to be fair, the concept of women's sufferage (let alone equality of women) wasn't really a popular idea anywhere until the late 1800s. ]

AnswerWhile the often-expressed opinion that the reason for the South's secession was solely based on the State's Rights opinion, there is a significant amount of modern literary historical work that indicates that many of the State's Rights advocates (of which Jefferson Davis was one of the louder members) were in fact much more concerned with the maintenance of the existing Southern cultural social order, and that the abstract concept of States Rights was less important than having the South's current slave-supported aristocracy maintained.

If such research is correct, then Jefferson Davis would have been in favor of a strong Federal Government, rather than individual States Rights, so long as the Federal Government backed maintaining slavery. That is, he backed States Rights only because the (U.S.) Federal Government looked like it would upset the slavery-based Southern culture.

This is likely, since the primary immediate cause of the Civil War is the election of Abraham Lincoln, seen as a substantial pro-abolitionist by most of the South (Davis included). Much of the South believed that Lincoln would side with the Northern abolitionist movement, and immediately outlaw slavery in the U.S. The historical truth is that Lincoln was in favor of a gradual removal of slavery, not finally outlawing slavery until 1900.

Answer 2

Confederate President Jefferson Davis had a heavy task before him when the US Civil War began. In order to win independence form the North, he realized that the national government, now relocated to Richmond, Virginia, required a more central and national view. This meant that State's rights, a valuable talking point among Southerners, would need to be refocused on granting as much power as possible in a strong national government. Surprisingly many Souther governors did not take kindly to that view.

Answer 3

Jefferson Davis, as the leader of the Confederacy, believed that the rights of states take precedence over the powers of the federal government.

Answer 4

he favored state goverments

Answer 5

Advocate of STATE RIGHT'S