Jefferson Davis, Religion, and the Politics of Recognition
D. Jason Berggren[1]
(Article was published in White House Studies 5.2 (2005): 231-241)
ABSTRACT
At a time when Catholics and Jews were often held in contempt and discriminated against, one president did more than any other American president before the twentieth century to symbolically recognize them. That president was Jefferson Davis. Through his appointment power, the Confederate President created the first administration in American history that included Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Unlike his contemporary Abraham Lincoln who only appointed Protestants to high office,
[1] D. Jason Berggren is a Ph.D. candidate and instructor of political science at
ANOTHER TRAIL OF INQUIRY
V.O. Key once wrote that in studying and understanding Southern politics “sooner or later the trail of inquiry leads to the Negro.”[i] Those who follow Key’s line of inquiry, which most scholars of the South do, conclude that the South has not only been “illiberal”, but more importantly the South has been “non-democratic”.[ii]
But what if the trail of inquiry is drawn away from issues of race? Might we see a different South? Might a redrawn trail lead us to see aspects of the South largely unacknowledged or unappreciated? Might there be a redeemable, laudatory Southern past? Might there be Southern precedents beneficial to what Arend Lijphart called the quality of democracy?[iii] In a very small way, the broader purpose of this paper is to commit a heretical act.
[i] V.O. Key, Jr., Southern Politics in State and Nation. Reprint. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, [1949] 1984), 5.
[ii] John H. Aldrich, “Southern Parties in State and Nation,” Journal of Politics 62.3 (August 2000), 643-670.
[iii] See Arend Lijphart, Patterns of Democracy: Government Forms and Performance in Thirty-Six Countries (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).
[1] D. Jason Berggren is a Ph.D. candidate and instructor of political science at
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A DIFFERENT COMPARISON OF LINCOLN AND DAVIS
In the typical comparison between Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis,
It is commonly recognized that
This article shows a different side of Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy, and the South — a side under-appreciated if even known by most Americans. With the exception of Davis scholars
and non-mainstream Southern scholars, most may not know that President Davis broadened the circle of inclusion for minority communities, that the Confederacy was vigorously supported by minority communities, including Catholics, Jews, and Native Americans, and that religious minorities succeeded politically more so in the antebellum South than in the North.
When
Watson of
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