Conflict and Command: Civil War History Readers, Volume 1

Jefferson Davis’s Pursuit of Ambition: The Attractive Features of Alternative Decisions

jefferson davis’s pursuit of ambition 157 Jefferson davis’s Pursuit of ambition The attractive Features of alternative Decisions richard e. beringer Jefferson davis was a man who slipped out of one role and into another with frequency, but his biographers give us no explanation for the twists and turns in his career. one explanation is that scholars have paid insufficient attention to the process by which davis made decisions, although it is only because of his decisionsthatdavisachieved sufficientstatusto beworththe historian’sattention in the first place. decisions did not always come easy for davis, who sometimes regretted those he made. In his earlier years, this difficulty is best understood in terms of his goals in life;in his lateryears a pattern of indecisiveness carried over into the Civil War period and adversely affected davis’s effectiveness as president of the Confederacy. The first point of this article is to demonstrate that prior to the Civil War, Jefferson davis’s ambitions engaged him in a constant quest for status, that muchcoveted “position in the hierarchy of prestige and influence that characterizes everycommunityorassociation,”asroberta.nisbetputit,and“aspecific,positive or negative, social estimation of honor,” according to Max Weber.1 Much of this 157 E Civil War History, Vol. XXXVIII no. 1 © 1992 by The Kent state University Press This article is based on a papergiven at the 1990 meeting of the social science Historyassociation. I wish to thank Joan r. Gunderson, robert e. May, and ronald Hatzenbuehler for their helpful comments on that occasion. I also wish to thank archer Jones and Herman Hattaway, who read this manuscript and offered suggestions. any errors that remain are my responsibility. 1. nisbet, The sociologicalTradition (newYork:basic books, 1966), 6;H. H. Gerth and C.Wright Mills, ed. and trans., From Max weber:Essays in sociology (newYork:oxford Univ. Press, 1958), 187. 158 richard e. beringer 2. leon Festinger,“Cognitive dissonance,”scientificamerican 207 (oct. 1962):93.This article is a popularized summary,with everydayexamples, of the full-length presentation found in Festinger, a Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (stanford: stanford Univ. Press, 1962). 3. Milton J. rosenberg, “deciding about dissonance,” Contemporary Psychology 11 (Jan. 1966): 5. quest can best be understood in terms of the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance. davis could not simply win status and then enjoy it; in order to be secure, he had toearn itagain and again, its possession ratified periodicallybythe community. davis thereforecontinuallyplaced his status and honorin jeopardy byabandoning one achievement in orderto ratify his position byachievement in another. during the Civil War, davis’s life goal changed and he sought victory above all. The second purpose here is to show that once again the decisions he made to reach his goal—especially on personnel matters—illustrate the mechanism of cognitive dissonance. This decision-making process is common to us all, but it is especially striking in davis. It helped him to achieve status before the war, and adversely affected his effectiveness as president of the Confederacy during the war. The notionof cognitivedissonance provides awayof understandingwhen and how davis decided to abandon one intent or decision and adopt another, initially in his pursuit of status and honor and later in his quest for Confederate victory. It “centers around the idea that if a person knows various things that are not psychologicallyconsistent with one another, he will, in a variety of ways, try to make them more consistent.”2 The complement of cognitive dissonance is postdecision dissonance,whichiscreated bythesubject’sunderstandingof theattractivefeatures of rejected alternatives;it becomessignificanttothesamedegreethataperson has anemotionalcommitmenttotheoutcomeof aparticulardecisionorposition.If an action, behavior, or belief has a potentially profound effect upon one’s life, there is a possibility that the knowledge of that effectwill create severe dissonance. The awareness of attractive features of alternatives that must necessarily be rejected createsconflict,for“adecisiononcemadetendstogeneratesubsequentdissonance between thecognized factof choice and the persistingcognitions that support the rejected alternative and oppose the chosen one.”3 no matter which way davis turned, whether as soldier, planter, or politician —and he was all three at one time or another—he could appreciate and be oppressed by the memory of rejected alternatives, of other roads he could have taken.The resulting dissonance had to be dealtwith.as leon Festingercontends, cognitive dissonance is “an antecedent condition which leads to activityoriented toward dissonance reduction justas hungerleads toactivityoriented toward hun- jefferson davis’s pursuit of ambition 159 ger reduction.” emotional investment is important here, and like everyone else davis would “try...