February 22, 1861: Jefferson Davis is officially inaugurated as President of the Confederacy.

The office of the Presidency, like the Confederate States Constitution, was nearly identical to its United States counterpart. Even the presidential oath, which was nearly exactly the same, although presidential terms lasted six years instead of four.

Jefferson Davis, a Kentucky native like Lincoln, was unanimously elected to the Presidency and served until the dissolution of the Confederate government on May 5, 1865. His inauguration (as provisional president) took place on February 18, 1861, in Montgomery, Alabama, and his impact on the post-war Lost Cause movement could already be predicted in his inaugural speech, in which he stated:

“Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established… 

We have entered upon the career of independence, and it must be inflexibly pursued. Through many years of controversy with our late associates, the Northern States, we have vainly endeavored to secure tranquility, and to obtain respect for the rights to which we were entitled. As a necessity, not a choice, we have resorted to the remedy of separation…”

In his speech, he also advised for the organization of a disciplined army, though he could never have predicted the scale of the bloodshed of the Civil War, which began less than two months after his inauguration.