Monday, February 18, 2013

Inauguration of Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederate States of America, February 18, 1861


Photograph of State Capitol Building in Montgomery, Alabama on February 18, the occasion of Jefferson Davis' Inauguration
Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederate States of America on the portico of the Alabama capitol. Davis, a former U.S. senator from Mississippi, lived in Montgomery until April, when the Confederate government was moved from Montgomery to its new capital of Richmond, Virginia. 





Star marking the spot
 where Jefferson Davis stood during Inauguration


"Today I have stood where Jefferson Davis stood and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom. . . . In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say, Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"
~ George Wallace,1962 Governor's Inaugural Address, Montgomery, Alabama


Celebration of Confederate Inaguration, February 19, 2011
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2011/summer/scv-celebrates-confederate-inaugurati

SCV Celebrates Confederate Inauguration in Montgomery

Feb. 19, 2011
Hundreds of neo-Confederates, reenactors and others joined a march and rally organized by the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV), a Southern heritage group, to unapologetically "CELEBRATE THE BEGINNING OF THE CONFEDERACY."
The gathering, which included the reenactment of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis as the president of the Confederate States of America, came as part of a series of events to mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and was meant to ensure that the war "is remembered and portrayed in the right way." What was meant by the "right way" was evidenced by the SCV website promoting the event, which insisted that "the South was right!" and claimed that "there is no difference between the invasion of France by Hitler and the invasion of the Southern states by Lincoln."
Although the marchers took the end of the same route as the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in 1965, no mention whatsoever was made of slavery, which SCV members claim had nothing to do with the Civil War — an assertion that has been repeatedly debunked by virtually all serious historians of the period.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/us/21davis.html

Marking Davis’s Confederate Inauguration


New York Times


No comments:

Post a Comment