Thursday, November 6, 2008

Jefferson Davis elected to Confederate Presidency


Today in 1861 Jefferson Davis is elected president of the Confederate States of America. There was no opposition or actual race but more of a confirmation to the decision that had been made by the Confederate Congress earlier in the year.
Like his Union counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky. He attended West Point and graduated in 1828 and served in the Black Hawk War of 1832.
After the Mexican war he was appointed to fill a vacant U.S. senate seat from Mississippi, and he served as Secretary of War under President Franklin Pierce.

When the newly seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4, 1861, they decided Davis should serve as the first President of the Confederacy and would serve a six-year term as established by the Confederate constitution.

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