Customer Reviews

A Government of Our Own: The Making of the Confederacy

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I read this book this past year not having anything more than a general idea of Confederate history although I am a lawyer and very interested in U.S. constitutional legal history. I thought Prof. Davis did an excellent job of telling the story of the people and political forces which resulted ultimately in the writing and issuance of the Confederate Constitution. Davis's writing style is engaging, fast paced yet informative. The story "flowed," and the book was a "page turner." I felt he "got inside the head" of the principals of whom he wrote. I found that I particularly liked and was interested and intrigued by the figure of Alexander Stevens ("Little Aleck"). Davis's book made me want to read more about the Confederacy and about this remarkable Southern politician who served as the South's vice president

William C."The writing Machine" Davis has a very readable style that is so fluid you read without realizing it! He is a very interesting writer in that he brings color to history. Davis performs wonderfully on describing the factions existing within the legislative congress that created the confederacy. He draws from the letters of a great deal of the political giants of the provisional Confederate government and also uses a chronological approach to portray events of the creation of the Confederate government in Montgomery, Alabama. He concentrates mostly on the legislative events in the first few months of 1861; although, he descriptively and almost in detail paints a verbal portrait of the view of Montgomery. This book is definitely a good buy for someone wishing to learn about the Southern Confederate Constitutional convention!

In "A Government of Our Own", William C. Davis provides a comprehensive and readable survey of the founding of the Confederacy. Davis looks at the creation of the Confederate constitution as well as the election of Jefferson Davis and the naming of his Cabinet. He also provides a good look at how the South moved towards war with the North.

Davis is at both his best and worst when he offers quick biographical sketches of some of the leading political actors. He provides excellent sketches on Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens and a host of forgotten Southern statesmen. The problem is if Davis does not care for a politician, he often goes out of his way to bash them; this can be seen very clearly in the cases of Thomas Cobb and Robert Barnwell Rhett.

Studies of the Confederacy focus on the military and not the government. This book fills a gap. Davis offers an excellent look at how the Confederate government was founded and the politics behind it.

After reading "A GOVERNMENT OF OUR OWN" I came away with an entirely new view of the Confederacy and the Civil War.

William C. Davis has convinced me that the South's heart was not in the Civil War despite the vast sacrifice of blood and treasure that Southerners made in establishing the CSA and fighting for their independence. Subsequent reading of other authors has tended to confirm this outlook for me.

"A GOVERNMENT OF OUR OWN" discusses the Montgomery Convention of 1861, that ad hoc body of delegates who formed the political framework of the Confederacy. Many historians are impressed that the men in Montgomery formed in scant weeks what the Founders in Philadelphia took months to construct, but the Montgomery group had a working template in the United States of America. Indeed, some of them wanted to call their country the "United States of America."

As reflected in "A GOVERNMENT OF OUR OWN" the South simply was not different enough from the rest of the Union to maintain its autonomy for more than an historical eyeblink. Davis shows us that the South's national institutions---it's Congress, it's Presidency, it's Constitution, it's laws, it's national symbols, and it's worldview---were essentially identical to the North's, but for it's "peculiar institution," Slavery, and a particular sense of "Southern Honor" that pervaded it's oligarchy.

In short, the South went out of the Union because it was offended by what was perceived as congenital Northern boorishness. There was a fear that the North's rapidly growing population would overwhelm the South in Congress. Furthermore, Southerners believed that the more heterogeneous North was not the true heir of the Spirit of '76, but that they were. Hence, the decision to maintain July 4th and Washington's Birthday as it's national holidays. An essentially conservative society, the South may have allowed the rhetoric of "fire-eaters" to stir its passions, but as Davis illustrates, these same men were marginalized politically after the die was cast.

In 1861, most Southerners (including those at Montgomery) failed to recognize that secession would necessarily lead to war, and few of them wanted war, despite their loud talk. They perceived themselves not as enemies of the United States but as a body of true American patriots "taking back America." Had they been able to dominate the North politically (as had been the case until the 1850s) their capital would have remained Washington. The quick and relatively peaceful acquiescence of defeated Confederates into becoming U.S. citizens again in 1865 is possibly the strongest indicator of how historically impotent the C.S.A. really was "on the ground" even though a powerful sense of Southern uniqueness still exists.

Does this mean that the Civil War was unnecessary and anomalous? Probably not. The ugly irony of human bondage existing in a land dedicated to liberty, evaded through compromise for so long, had come to the apex of national consciousness (both Union and Confederate); the issue of whether the nation was to be a loosely organized agrarian society or a more tightly bound industrial power had become a sticking point; and the hypothesis that disaffection could influence disunion had to be tested.

In 1861, the odds were that the United States would not only not survive, but that it would be riven not into two nations but balkanized into numerous regional republics. Very sadly, an ocean of blood had to be spilt in order to confirm that the nation was viable.

Most Civil War books focus on the military aspects of the war. A few address social causes and changes. Very few look at the Civil War from a political standpoint. As one of the few, "A GOVERNMENT OF OUR OWN" is an essential addition to your Civil War bookshelf.

This is the perfect non-fiction e-book. The text is almost typo-free, the table of contents is linked, the footnotes are linked, and (rarest of all) you can page through the footnotes to see, for example, what "id." or "Davis, p. 15" refers back to.

As for the book itself, I found it fascinating in the details it provided of how the former U.S. Senators and Representatives of the initially seceding states put together a new government and got its operations off the ground. To my taste, too much space was devoted to describing Montgomery and its residents. But that's a minor quibble.

Mr. Davis' well-earned reputation for writing excellence on the War Between the States shows yet again in this treatise on the early days of the Confederacy, the REAL reasons for secession, and the personalities who played pivotal roles in the birth of this brief-lived nation. If you get the chance to hear Mr. Davis lecture on this subject at a Civil War Round Table meeting, go. His speaking skills are as exceptional as his writing.