Summary:
A comparison of the Civil War presidencies of Abraham Lincoln for the Union and Jefferson Davis for the Confederacy shows some similarities. Both conflicted with other individuals in their respective governments -- Lincoln with the U.S. Senate, Davis with his vice president Alexander Stephens. Both also had weaknesses to overcome; Lincoln had little government experience and showed an inability to control his Cabinet members, while Davis easily made enemies and preferred leading an army over establishing a stable government.
During the Civil War, America was at war with itself over the institution of slavery. While at war, many slave states began to stray from the Union and create the Confederate Government. With the creation of the Confederacy, the United States was broken up into two different governments. The Union's leader was Abraham Lincoln and the Confederate's leader was Jefferson Davis. Since these two governments were rather new, because of the loss or gain of states, it made both sides of the country's government unstable.
While Lincoln was a great president with long lasting precedence, he still had some weaknesses in his leadership skills. One of Lincoln's weaknesses was his inability to control the people under him. Many Republicans did not respect Lincoln and this caused problems. In addition, Lincoln had never served in the Cabinet or the Senate. Setbacks in the early parts of the Civil War made Radical Republicans certain that Lincoln was an inefficient leader. Also, these Radical Republicans berated him for not making Emancipation a war goal in the beginning. On the other hand Lincoln was informed by the Democrats to go through the war without conscription, emancipating of slaves, and without the National Bank Act. Although Lincoln was actually a good leader of this time, his conflicts with his own Senate and congress members and his background with
little to no government made him look like a bad leader.
However, Jefferson Davis was a leader who easily made enemies. Davis was a graduate from West Point and would rather be leading an army than a government, which is not a good mentality for a President. His cabinet members were not faithful and frequently resigned. Also, Davis's relationship with his Vice President, Alexander Stephens was catastrophic; Davis and Stephens conflicted in personality and ideology. Furthermore, Davis usually superseded the wishes of political leaders that were for the good of the Confederacy. One major weakness of Davis was the "unity' or rather disunity of the Whigs and Democratic parties, which wanted to suspend party rivalries for the rest of the war. With the conflict congress voted on personal opinion and Davis could no longer gather together votes needed to pass measures that he preferred. Even though Davis had the potential to be a good president, his congress's conflicts, conflicts with his Vice President, and his attitude of wanting to fight rather than maintain a stable government were his weaknesses.
The two entirely different government leaders, Davis and Lincoln had some similarities. Lincoln's conflict with the Democratic Party and Davis's conflicts with Vice President Stephens were very similar. Lincoln's weaknesses were his conflicts in his Congress on how to win the war and his little knowledge of government. Davis's weaknesses were his conflict with his very own Vice President, the disunity of his Senate, and his, "Win the war or die state of mind," left him with little care of the security of his political foundation.
This is the complete article, containing 486 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
