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And with his inflexibility, he was notoriously intolerant of those who disagreed with him.
But he was in a trying situation during a bad time. I don't know if Lincoln hisself could have presided over the CSA, even without the war interfering.
What do you think, past the failures of the military aspects?
Jefferson Davis was much more of a Dictator than the head of a repulic.
He wanted to be the second coming of George Washington. So, he forces on us the comparison between him and Washington as well as comparison between him and Lincoln. Jeff Davis suffers from both comparisons. One cannot run a republic, even a nascent one, without being able to build consensus.
And, I don't agree that Jeff Davis had a tougher job. Lincoln constantly struggled to keep his coalition together, and he constantly had to mssage the North's flagging will to fight. He even managed to hold onto the border states.
The South meanwhile had a strong will to fight and was much more united. Even southern papers, not a big fan of Lincoln, admitted that Jeff Davis was no where near the stateman that Lincoln was.
The one other big failing that I see of Jeff Davis was the inability to draw Great Britain into the conflict. Great Britain had just fought the Opium Wars because they didn't want to pay for their tea with silver. So, don't tell me that convincing Great Britain to fight on the Confederate side was a hard sell, given Great Britain's dependence on Southern cotton.
Jeff Davis basically had to do two things. Get the best generals to lead the armies and get Great Britain and France involved in the war. He failed on both counts. He had good generals in the East, but he had Braxton Bragg and Joseph Johnston in the west. Why didn't he give command of Army of Tennesse to Stonewall Jackson? Jackson would have wiped the floor with Rosecrans.
Cheers,
Jae