The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Please Stop Slandering Jefferson Davis

Posted on | January 16, 2026 | No Comments

U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, 1853

In recent days, various of my conservative friends have thought it amusing to compare Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to Jefferson Davis. The intent is to compare Walz’s opposition to federal immigration enforcement to the Confederate president’s defense of Southern independence. They mean this as a joke, see? “States’ Rights, LOL!”

There is, however, only so much of this jocularity I can tolerate without objection. Far be it from me to rekindle the flames of sectional animosity, and I do not wish to be perceived as thin-skinned, the stereotypical Southern hothead, prone to quarrel over the merest unintentional slight. But to my friends, I must say it’s time to knock it off.

Jefferson Davis graduated from West Point in the class of 1828, and began his army service on the frontier at Fort Crawford in present-day Wisconsin under the command of Zachary Taylor, whose daughter subsequently became Davis’s first wife (she died during a malaria outbreak in 1835). After leaving the army, Davis became involved in Mississippi politics, and was elected to Congress in 1845. After the outbreak of war with Mexico, Davis resigned from Congress and led a regiment of volunteers, the famed “Mississippi Rifles,” serving under Taylor’s command and winning distinction at the battles of Monterrey and Buena Vista. Thereafter being elected to the Senate, Davis became the leading advocate of Southern interests — the de facto political heir of John C. Calhoun — and was appointed Secretary of War in the administration of Franklin Pierce. Afterwards, Davis returned to the Senate, which seat he resigned in 1861 after Mississippi voted to secede from the Union. Davis was then unanimously elected president of the Confederacy by the delegates meeting at Montgomery, Alabama.

In making satirical comparisons of Tim Walz to Jefferson Davis, what is the implication about Davis? Was he a ridiculous fool like Walz? No, sir, he was not, and none of his contemporaries thought him so. Nor did Davis, in championing the interests of his state, ever adopt any position as absurd and plainly unconstitutional as that which Walz has advocated in opposing immigration enforcement in Minnesota.

Let’s leave the bad historical analogies to Democrats, OK?



 

Category: History

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