# Resolved: Not one Federal dime should go to rebuild Jefferson Davis's house **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 9, 2006, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967 "2006-08-09T04:27:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/21 "2006-08-09T20:06:23Z")
Come on now. I’m not suggesting that we burn it to the ground. I’m not suggesting that we forget history. I’m not suggesting that Jefferson Davis wasn’t an important figure in American history. Hell, if state authorities, history buffs, neo-Confederates and devotees of the Lost Cause want to pony up to overhaul his house, more power to them. I simply think, because of Davis’s prominence in the four-year struggle to destroy the Union, his abhorrent views on slavery, and the many other demands upon the current budget of the nation he rejected and betrayed, it would be inappropriate for Federal tax dollars to be spent on his house. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/22 "2006-08-09T20:20:19Z")
[QUOTE=Cervaise] I agree. Let’s preserve the house, and put up a big sign: It is important that we retain the evidence of how this vile, traitorous motherfucker lived. [/QUOTE] You know, if at some point in the future uberfemms get into power, you might be reviled as a member of the phallocracy, enslaving females for your own pleasure as servants and baby factories. You traitorous penis weilding whoremonger. Everything is viewpoint. Up until recently marriage at 13 or 14 wasnt that odd, now it is child rape. Up until recently, 8 year old children worked in factories, now it is child abuse. Up until recently women had no vote, and almost no say in running their own lives. That is chattel slavery. I can vote, have a job and _keep_ all that I earn, and disburse it as I will, and I can own property, that my husband can’t decide to sell. I am a free citizen. Is someone from 1700, who married a bride of 13 a vile rapist and molester? Not really, they were living in a different time. Diferent time, different mores. Did a parent putting their child in service as a maid/footman or into a factory in 1800 an abuser? Not really, they probably needed the income, and it was common practice at the time. They were just like any number of others. I know a lot of kids nowdays who live on working farms that do chores at 8 years old. Jefferson Davis, and all the others in the south were acting according to the mores of the time. He was trying to exercise his constitution right [as the south saw them] of separating from the northern half of the country because of differences of viewpoint. Winners declare losers traitorous. If we had lost the revolutionary war, the founding fathers would have been hung [or punished and considered] traitors. If the south had seceeded peacefully with no war, your rant would have no basis. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/23 "2006-08-09T20:23:46Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] If we do anything on the federal level to honor Indians who have opposed the US Gov’t through force I see no reason not to also honor J.D. [/QUOTE] To **honor** him? We shouldn’t honor **anyone** whose claim to fame is leading a war in order to preserve chattel slavery. This is a terribly flawed analogy for a variety of reasons. > [@Freddy the Pig](#): > > The Davis plantation, in particular, offers the opportunity to narrate the fascinating story of Benjamin Montgomery, Davis’ one-time slave who bought his plantation after the war and managed it for ten years, only to see his empire collapse, along with so many African American aspirations, at the end of Reconstruction. Now **that’s** a good reason to preserve the house, and what I wanted to ask. As long as the house isn’t a museum that whitewashes slavery, it should be preserved. Davis’s house needs to be preserved as a monument to infamy, and it needs to be run as such. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/24 "2006-08-09T20:27:40Z")
[QUOTE=aruvqan] You know, if at some point in the future uberfemms get into power, you might be reviled as a member of the phallocracy, enslaving females for your own pleasure as servants and baby factories. You traitorous penis weilding whoremonger. Everything is viewpoint. [/quote] No, everything is not viewpoint. Damn postmodernist moral relativists, ruining our youth… 😉 Yes, it’s possible that in the future some idiotic regime will get in power and declare me to be a traitor. That just means they’re idiotic. It doesn’t mean that we may not declare someone else to be a traitor. > [@](#): > > Up until recently women had no vote, and almost no say in running their own lives. That is chattel slavery. No it’s not. It was unjust, sure, but it wasn’t chattel slavery. But I tell you that if someone had led a bloody war of secession over the nineteenth amendment, I would want their house preserved as a wretched traitor. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/25 "2006-08-09T20:47:38Z")
Jefferson Davis was a traitor? Was he ever charged with treason? Brought to trial? Convicted? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/26 "2006-08-09T20:56:54Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Jefferson Davis was a traitor? Was he ever charged with treason? Brought to trial? Convicted? [/QUOTE] Surely you know both the answer to your question and the fact that neither I nor anyone else was speaking of judicial proceedings. I can link to a dictionary if that’d help, but I hope you won’t choose this hill. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/27 "2006-08-09T21:00:29Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Jefferson Davis was a traitor? Was he ever charged with treason? Brought to trial? Convicted? [/QUOTE] He was indicted for treason but eventually the charges were dropped. Bennedict Arnold was never convicted of treason but he was a traitor, right? Marc ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/28 "2006-08-09T21:00:43Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Jefferson Davis was a traitor? Was he ever charged with treason? Brought to trial? Convicted? [/QUOTE] Yes, Yes, Yes and I don’t think so. I belive the outcome of the trial was that Davis was found to be included in the general amnesty issued at the end of the war. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/29 "2006-08-09T21:14:52Z")
Forgot to address the OP. While I think Jefferson Davis was obviously a traitor (I mean, if that’s not providing aid and comfort to the enemy, I don’t know what is), I hardly think taking it out on his house makes sense. I mean its not like the guy is living there _now_. If they were going to make it into some sort of shrine to the Confederacy or something, it would be wrong, but it sounds like its just a museum of an influential dead American. The appropriateness of federal dollars in general going to historic preservation is probably best left to another thread, as the OP seems mainly concerned with spending money on _this_ house in particular. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/30 "2006-08-09T21:31:46Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] Surely there are better uses for your and my Federal tax dollars. [/QUOTE] Not really. It’s called preservation of history. Like it or not, Jefferson Davis played a big role in our history. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/31 "2006-08-09T21:38:22Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] Yes, Yes, Yes and I don’t think so. I belive the outcome of the trial was that Davis was found to be included in the general amnesty issued at the end of the war. [/QUOTE] Nope. Never brought to trial, even though he requested it He was offered a pardon and refused it. > [@](#): > > While I think Jefferson Davis was obviously a traitor (I mean, if that’s not providing aid and comfort to the enemy, I don’t know what is), I hardly think taking it out on his house makes sense. So the Conederacy was the enemy of the United States? Was anybody else besides Davis a traitor? Footsoldiers, were they traitors? [QUOTE=MGibson] Bennedict Arnold was never convicted of treason but he was a traitor, right? [/QUOTE] Did we have him in custody and refuse to indicte him? Or did he escape before such charges could be brought? [QUOTE=LHOD] Surely you know both the answer to your question and the fact that neither I nor anyone else was speaking of judicial proceedings. I can link to a dictionary if that’d help, but I hope you won’t choose this hill. [/QUOTE] Gosh,\*\* Lefty\*\*, now I know how Paul Newman must have felt when George Kennedy begged him not to get up. We all know how that worked out. If he was not a traitor under the law, in what way was he a traitor? And no, I don’t know what you mean. It can and has been argued that secession was a constitutional right. ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/32 "2006-08-09T21:55:24Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Nope. Never brought to trial, even though he requested it He was offered a pardon and refused it. [/quote] From [herer](http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DAH_DEM/DAVIS_JEFFERSON_18081889_.html) “They moved to quash the indictment **on which he was brought to trial**.” > [@](#): > > So the Conederacy was the enemy of the United States? Was anybody else besides Davis a traitor? Footsoldiers, were they traitors? Yeah, I don’t see how that’s debatable. They were given amnesty, if they weren’t traitors, they wouldn’t have needed it. Shooting at Federal troops is certainly giving aid and comfort to the enemy, even if you’re a foot shoulder. Ask John Walker. > [@](#): > > If he was not a traitor under the law, in what way was he a traitor? Again, the court appears to have not addressed whether he was a traitor or not, as the general amnesty issued at the end of the war was found to cover him (see my cite). ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/33 "2006-08-09T22:26:58Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] From [herer](http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DAH_DEM/DAVIS_JEFFERSON_18081889_.html) “They moved to quash the indictment **on which he was brought to trial**.” [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > When his government collapsed in May, 1865, Davis was arrested and imprisoned for two years in Fortress Monroe. Although indicted for treason, he was not brought to trial and was released in 1867. From here. [http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASdavisJ.htm](http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASdavisJ.htm) > [@](#): > > Although indicted for treason, he was not brought to trial and was released in 1867. From here. [http://www.aaregistry.com/african\_american\_history/2152/The\_heart\_of\_the\_confederacy\_Jefferson\_Davis](http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2152/The_heart_of_the_confederacy_Jefferson_Davis) > [@](#): > > Although indicted, Davis was never brought to trial, and he was released on bond in 1867. From here. [http://library.thinkquest.org/3055/netscape/people/davis.html](http://library.thinkquest.org/3055/netscape/people/davis.html) > [@](#): > > After the war, he was held for two years in prison, but was never brought to trial for treason. From here. [Error 404](http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/termscivil.html) > [@](#): > > Yeah, I don’t see how that’s debatable. They were given amnesty, if they weren’t traitors, they wouldn’t have needed it. Shooting at Federal troops is certainly giving aid and comfort to the enemy, even if you’re a foot shoulder. Ask John Walker. A cite that the general amnesty was for treason? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/34 "2006-08-09T22:28:11Z")
Forgot to ask this again–what was his treasonous act? ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/35 "2006-08-10T02:33:33Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] To honor him? We shouldn’t honor anyone whose claim to fame is leading a war in order to preserve chattel slavery. This is a terribly flawed analogy for a variety of reasons. [/QUOTE] Well if you say he was pro slavery, then lets throw in Washington also, but your statement that is was a war to preserve chattel slavery is not universally accepted, as you probabally know many take it as an issue of state’s rights, and it was not the fed’s place to issue such restrictions. J.D. had no power to perserve slavery if the confederate states wished to ban them, all he was doing was preserving the rights of the states to decide. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/36 "2006-08-10T06:12:06Z")
Spending federal dollars to maintain Jefferson Davis’ home is little different from spending federal dollars to maintain Robert E. Lee’s former home in Virginia. And there are federal military installations all across the South named after Confederate generals – Benning, Bragg, Jackson and Stewart, to name but a few. The good thing about maintaining Confederate memorials is that it is a constant reminder of the tragedy of the U.S. Civil War. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/37 "2006-08-10T14:14:04Z")
[QUOTE=Contrapuntal] Gosh,\*\* Lefty\*\*, now I know how Paul Newman must have felt when George Kennedy begged him not to get up. We all know how that worked out. If he was not a traitor under the law, in what way was he a traitor? And no, I don’t know what you mean. It can and has been argued that secession was a constitutional right. [/QUOTE] And yet you didn’t check the dictionary: > [@](#): > > One who betrays one’s country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason. That’s what a traitor is. Think long and hard on it and try to see if you can figure out why anyone might call Davis a traitor. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/38 "2006-08-10T14:15:31Z")
[QUOTE=kanicbird] statement that is was a war to preserve chattel slavery is not universally accepted, as you probabally know many take it as an issue of state’s rights, and it was not the fed’s place to issue such restrictions. [/QUOTE] I know it’s not universally accepted–neither is the theory of natural selection. There are people out there who delude themselves into believing all kinds of nonsense. The South very explicitly fought the war to preserve chattel slavery. Dig up any of the articles of secession, and you’ll see. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/39 "2006-08-10T14:43:25Z")
> [@contrapuntual](#): > > A cite that the general amnesty was for treason? The first two lines of the [1863 Amnesty Proclamation](http://www.history.umd.edu/Freedmen/procamn.htm): > [@](#): > > "WHEREAS, in and by the Constitution of the United States, it is provided that the President “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment;” and > > Whereas, a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal state governments of several states have for a long time been subverted, and many persons have committed, and are now guilty of, **treason** against the United States;" As to the question of whether he was brought to trial, your cites are basically all one sentence long. Mine includes the names of the lawyers and justices involved, so I’m more inclined to stick to the “bought to trial, but case dropped by gov’t” story. Perhaps there is some legal deffinition of “brought to trial” I’m unaware of, and that if no verdict is rendered you weren’t technically “brought to trial”? But in anycase, I’d say that by the laymans definition, Davis was indeed brought to trial for treason. This [site](http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/faqs.cfm) claims that he was physically in the courtroom twice due to his indictment for treason. Also note from the above site that his lawyers defense was not that Davis wasn’t guilty, but that he had already been punished by the 14th amendment. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2006, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967/40 "2006-08-10T15:01:47Z")
> [@](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > One who betrays one’s country, a cause, or a trust, especially one who commits treason. > > That’s what a traitor is. Think long and hard on it and try to see if you can figure out why anyone might call Davis a traitor. And yet, after the Confederacy was formed, Davis was no longer a citizen or resident of the United States of America, but of the Confederate States of America, and that was his country, not the US. So how was he a traitor to his country (i.e. the CSA)? If you claim that Davis’ country was the USA, and that he was a traitor to it, then by the same logic Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the rest of the founding fathers were traitors to the Crown, and are equally deserving of condemnation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/resolved-not-one-federal-dime-should-go-to-rebuild-jefferson-daviss-house/367967.md?page=3)