What were some problems Jefferson Davis faced?

Answer 1

Jefferson Davis faced many problems in office. First of all, he faced the incessant demands of states righters that despised any centralized control (thus he had trouble taxing, keeping currency value steady, and even raising armies sometimes). He was a man of stubborn principle that refused to conform to public opinion, and as somewhat of a control freak he attempted to direct too many of the operations of the Confederacy. Not to mention the fact that his Confederacy was economically weaker, less populous, and manufacturingly weak.

Answer 2

Probably the most fundamental problem was that southerners were going to war to defend a principle enshrined in the Bill of Rights. This was States Rights, a theory of government where power was decentralized, with most power retained by the individual states, and a weak central government. Davis had to convince the states to work together, and to accept, at least while the war lasted, a stronger central government than anyone in the south wanted. This was a basic paradox which caused Davis no end of troubles - the south was fighting for a decentralized style of nation, but had to accept centralized power to obtain the goal. Davis had endless problems with state governors jealous over their respective states' rights, such as Joe Brown of Georgia and Zeb Vance of North Carolina. An illustration is the railroads north and south. The south had only one mile of track to every three in the north, and the north had no hesitation leaning on the railroads to make them support the war effort and runs trains as the government wanted and needed them run. The south tolerated inefficient, uncoordinated railroad operations which greatly hampered their war effort, because southerners were philosophically opposed to a strong government, both capable AND willing to force these private companies to operate their lines for the best military results.

Besides this fundamental obstacle Davis had many practical problems. The white population of the north outnumbered the south four to one. The south had no shipyards worth mentioning, no locomotive factories, and only a few foundaries capable of casting cannon. Only one rolling mill in the south was capable of producing sheet iron, for ship armor, of two inches thickness. When the war began an exhaustive search by the Confederate War Department turned up exactly six feet of copper wire in the entire Confederacy. There were few factories capable of producing firearms, and no gunpowder mills. Almost anything produced in a manufacturing plant was not to be found in the south. The south actually worked minor miracles to overcome all these deficiencies, by improvised and hastily commenced production facilities, and by imports. The Confederates built a massive gunpowder mill at Augusta, Georgia, for instance. This factory worked around the clock, employing mostly women, and the south never lost a battle because it ran out of gunpowder.

Answer 3

One major challenge that Thomas Jefferson faced, was national debt.