Jefferson Davis

This selection gathers the written work of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, drawn mostly from a multivolume edition of his letters and speeches published by Louisiana State University Press. Thirteen items come from manuscript collections and one from a private holding, none of which had appeared in a modern scholarly edition before.

The pieces cover a wide span of his life. They include early letters he wrote to his sister as a college student, major speeches on the Constitution, slavery and sectional conflict, his farewell address to the U.S. Senate, his first speech as Confederate president, and letters he sent to his wife from prison.