The Big Lie

Jefferson Davis was captured this day, May 10, in 1865, a day after President Johnson declared an end to combat (and the confederacy). While already in 1866 the US House had voted overwhelmingly to indict Davis for treason, he was not so indicted until March 1868: after Davis had already bailed out and moved to Canada. Davis' lawyers argued the 14th Amendment, barring him from office for "insurrection or rebellion," meant that a new trial for treason was double jeopardy (!). Davis was included in the general pardon of December 1868. [The Federal prosecutor who wrote Davis' indictment merely substituted Davis' name for Burr's on Burr's 1807 treason indictment.]

A fervent racist, by 1873 Davis was a leading proponent of "The Lost Cause" and proclaimed that southerners were "cheated not conquered."