Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (2 Volume Set)

Jefferson Davis

D. Appleton and Company, 1881

2 volume set. First edition. xxi, 707; xvii, 808pp.  19 plates and 18 (14 folding) maps. Matching leather set. 3/4 morocco over marbled boards. All edges marbled. Fine binding. This is an oversized or heavy book, that requires additional postage for international delivery outside the US. 

"As president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis directed the new nation's mighty struggle for independence". Born on the Kentucky frontier in the first decade of the 19th century, he witnessed and participated in the epochal transformation of the United States from fledgling country to a strong nation spanning the continent. His views, which he never recanted, were enshrined in his Rise and Fall, which was published in 1881" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, xvii-xxi). Rise and Fall was Davis' "magnum opus" This was not a conventional memoir that tells the story of the subject's life. Instead, Rise and Fall was in large part a massive, legalistic, dense and impersonal defense of state's rights, secession, and Southern independence" (Swanson, 363). This is "probably the most scholarly recital of the "states rights" arguments, since it was written by the leader of the movement after mature reflection" (Channing, 2156). "Every impartial reader must recognize the ability with which Davis' history is composed' and the value which it possesses as the authentic commentary on the most momentous episode in the history of the United States" (Allibone Supplement I:461). Howes D120. In Tall Cotton 34. Nevins II:51.