not the place he desired;
that, if he could have his choice, he would greatly prefer to be
in active service as commander-in-chief of the army, but that he
would give himself to the cause in any capacity whatever. That
was the only letter of which I have any knowledge that he wrote
on the subject, and that was shown to only a very few persons,
and only when I was asked if Mr. Davis would accept the
presidency....

"There was no electioneering, no management, on the part of any
one. Each voter was left to determine for himself in whose hands
the destinies of the infant Confederacy should be placed. By a
law as fixed as gravitation itself, and as little disturbed by
outside influences, the minds of members centered upon Mr.
Davis.

"After a few days of anxious, intense labor, the Provisional
Constitution was framed, and it became necessary to give it
vitality by putting some one at the head of the new
Government....

"Without any effort on the part of the friends of either
[Messrs. Davis or Stephens], the election was made without the
slightest dissent. Of the accidental complications referred to,
I have not the least knowledge, and always thought that the
election of Mr. Davis arose from the spontaneous conviction of
his peculiar fitness. I have consulted no one on the subject,
and have appended my name only to avoid resting an important
fact upon anonymous authority. Very respectfully yours,"

(Signed) "Alexander M. Clayton."

From the Hon. J. A. P. Campbell, of Mississippi, now a Justice of the
Supreme Court of that State:

"... If there was a delegate from Mississippi, or any other
State, who was opposed to the election of Jefferson Davis as
President of the Confederate States, I never heard of the fact.
I had the idea that Mr. Davis did not desire to be President,
and preferred to be in the military service, but no other man
was spoken of for President within my hearing....

"It is within my personal knowledge that the statement of the
interview, that Mr. Davis did not have a just appreciation of
the serious character of the contest between the seceding States
and the Union, is wholly untrue. Mr. Davis, more than any man I
ever heard talk on the subject, had a correct apprehension of
the consequences of secession and of the magnitude of the war to
be wa