Is Davis a Traitor: ÉOr Was the Secession of the Confederate States a Constitutional Right Previous to the Civil War of 1861? (Constitutional Commentaries and History) (Hardcover)Historian and constitutional scholar Albert Taylor Bledsoe considers whether the secession of the Confederate states was legal under constitutional law. The author poses the question: did Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States of America, commit treason by initiating the secession and thereby igniting the nation on a path to Civil War? Over the course of a lengthy analysis, Bledsoe justifies the actions of Jefferson Davis as lawful.