Reading up on the War Between the States, I was shocked to read that the former President of the secessionist half of said states got off with 2 years in the clink (!).
Here in England, when someone loses a civil war they are charged with treason and get their head chopped off. Then, when the former losing side gets back in power they dig up the head of the other side and execute him for treason…hmm. France and Russia following their civil wars executed the losing side’s head for treason too.
Following the most bloody war the U.S. had ever known, how did Jefferson Davis get off so lightly, being the leader of the Johnny Rebs and a bit of a schmuck to boot? Would it have been more trouble than it was worth during Reconstruction?
One country’s treason is another country’s patriotism. And due to the way the US was formed (they were considered traitors by the British crown, hence the Revolutionary War), I can’t see the Union being that hard on the Confederacy.
Additionally, it’s not like this was a single treasonous act by a single person. It was multiple states wanting to secede. If Texas decided to secede tomorrow, and fought a war with the US but lost, would you think we should kill the governor of Texas afterward? I should certainly think not.
This is just logic speaking. No cites. There may be other contributing factors, of course, I’m not a huge history buff.
After the war, Lincoln made a very big deal about treating the South as brothers, not as enemies. No time to look for cites, but I suppose “Reconstruction” might be a good start.
The general policy, beginning with Lincoln’s second inauguration speech talking about “malice towards none, charity towards all” and with generous terms offered by Grant and Sherman, was leniency. They felt that a harsh policy towards the Confederacy would make a peace much harder to win. What happened was Lincoln was killed before Davis could be captured and a lot of people suspected he was involved. Ultimately it was determined he wasn’t and although he was held captive for two years and indicted, the charges were ultimately dismissed. Ironically when he was released on bail, part of the money came from abolitionists like Gerrit Smith and Horace Greeley. He did see his character smeared by people like Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (a very capable man but vicious and paranoid) who spread rumors that Davis was caught disguised as a woman (he wasn’t).
There was also the distinctly American idea that he was “just” the President. Davis wasn’t a monarch, after all, and at the time, the Office of the President wasn’t nearly as big of a deal as it is today. Even the concept of a federal government at all wasn’t highly popular, so it’s hard to muster the will to execute someone for betraying it.
For a similar case, consider Robert E. Lee.
After the war, Lee went on to be a successful statesman. So in general, there were no hard feelings between the leaders of North and South. They weren’t being traitorous, but just doing what gentlemen do, it appears.
One other consideration: The Union feared, not unreasonably, that some Confederate generals would refuse to surrender, and would continue to carry on guerrilla warfare. That would be even MORE likely if Southern generals knew they faced execution and had no hope of mercy or clemency. Surrender was more likely if Confederate leaders knew they’d be allowed to return to their “normal” lives.
One thing that I read was, after the war, officers were allowed to keep their sidearms, only Confederate artillery was seized. I read that as a kid and just ignored it – the South had sort of an aristocratic hunting, gun-using culture, and anyway, in the 1800’s guns were still important. It took a while to for it to sink in, “Wait, we fought a war, and let an armed enemy go back home?”
There were two reasons for it. First, the assumption was that Southerners, once utterly crushed, were unlikely to try anything again. In fact, by the end of the Civil War, the economy of the southern states was so broken as to render military action impossible.
But second, nobody disputed the honor of the southern military. Traitors they might be, but honest traitors. Once paroled followng surrender, there was no doubt among the northern military that their southern brothers would abide by the terms. Indeed, the parole system broke down in large part because of two events: the South declared the paroles of some soldiers fulfilled even though the North did not agree, and the South refused to exchange black prisoners properly. (Grant later said that denying the South reinforcements was another reason, but this would have been a secondary reason for not restarting the parole exchanges, not why it was stopped.)
This was actually fairly common in the period. Partly it was because, unlike the enlisted men’s arms and artillery, officer’s arms were their personal property, so taking them would be seen as a form of looting, and also, where there was a negociated and “gentlemanly” surrender, there was usually agreement that the surrender would be “with drums beating and colours flying” and officers retaining their personal arms, mounts, etc. under parole.
Ref the surrender of Fort Sumter, and the surrender of Lee’s army at Appomattox, which stated “The arms, artillery and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officer appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage.” and clearly makes this distinction between the disposition of public and private property.
There were a number of factors that went into the decision not to convict Davis of treason. If he’d been found not guilty, it would have been an embarrassment–and his conviction was not necessarily a sure thing. If he’d been convicted, however, it would have made him into a martyr. But I think that probably the biggest factor was that we (Yankees) had no taste for blood by that point. If your argument has been “Yes, damn it, you’re Americans and you’re going to stay Americans,” executing instead of finding ways to reincorporate makes little sense. Even the Radical Republicans did not seriously entertain the idea of executions as punishment.
