Ahh, Jefferson Davis.
It's always amazed me that such a perfect fit for a Confederate leader existed, a man of stubbornness extraordinary, bordering mythical.
This is a man that was willing to stand on his conviction of "I will by God have everything, or I will have nothing" despite having to lose his entire (seceded) nation and people to see it through.
When that ego was dislodged, away with it went any semblance of whatever imagined heritage, culture, or dream that was the antebellum south.
This isn't a political point or any of that nonsense, mostly because I abhor politics.
But here's a man that could have, at any time before the war's end, won what any minded person would have considered a huge victory.
Lincoln supported the Corwin Amendment which would have protected slavery as it sat, and protected the Amendment from repeal. Something radically apart, only created to save the Union. Something that would have radically changed history and increased future human misery exponentially, but it wasn't enough. No siree.
Jeff needed more. He needed the whole wide open west south of the whatever the hell parallel it was. 49th?
A great quote that sums it all up and witnesses a stubborness that never ceases to amaze me...
"No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union." - General John B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War.