Whenever Davis comes into your mind, of course, you first think of that with which his name is most closely connected--his elevation and his great fall. Therefore it is quite right that we make our start from this point, which is, that he was the head of a subverted revolutionary government. He is one of a few who, like Richard Cromwell, Napoleon, and Kruger, were suffered to survive deposition. Nothing in nature hates a rival more than sovereignty--which, be it remembered, is the representative of a distinct nationality. Note how inevitably a young queen bee is killed by her own mother when found in the hive by the latter. Humanity has not in this particular evolved as yet very far above bee nature; and the fate of Maximilian, emperor of Mexico, usually befalls the sovereign head of a defeated revolution. To the student of history it is a surprise that the life of Davis was spared when American frenzy was at its height. Think of some of the things which then occurred. Mrs. Surratt and Wirz were hanged; the cruel cotton tax; the negroes were made rulers of the southern whites; it was provided _ex post facto_ that the high moral duty of paying for the emancipated slaves should never be done. While good men and women both of the north and the south will always censure with extreme severity the treatment which Davis as a prisoner received, they ought to note it as a most significant sign of American progress that he was at last allowed to go forth and live without molestation the rest of his life among his old followers. Before we begin the sketch which we contemplate let us bring out more vividly the novelty of his example by contrasting him with the failing leaders of revolutions mentioned above. Richard Cromwell could be tolerated as a private man by the restored royal government, because his protectorate had been, so far as he himself is considered, a mere accident. It was the mighty Oliver, his father, that overthrew and beheaded Charles I, and then took the reins of rule. These, when he died, came to his son, who in ability and ambition was a cipher. They who set him aside would have been ashamed to confess the slightest fear of him. His captors exiled Napoleon, and Kruger exiled himself. Richard Cromwell, having been cast out of the protectorate, living forgotten in England, is no parallel to Davis spending his last years in Mississippi honored by the entire south with mounting demonstration to his death. Had Napoleon lived in France and Kruger in the Transvaal, each after his overthrow, they would be parallels. As it is, the subsequent life of Davis is without any parallel. Having thus shown you what it is that Davis especially examples, let us now give you briefly such a biography as suits the purpose of this book.