How does this artwork elucidate its Background and unveiling ceremony?
In 1864, Congress passed legislation that invited each state to contribute two statues of prominent citizens for permanent display in the former meeting hall of the U.S. House of Representatives, which was renamed National Statuary Hall. The State of Mississippi commissioned Henry Augustus Lukeman to sculpt statues of Jefferson Davis and James Z. George to be presented as Mississippi's first contributions to the National Statuary Hall's collection. Neither Davis nor George were born in Mississippi but both had moved to the state as children. Lukeman had previously contributed to the construction of Confederate memorial Stone Mountain in Georgia.
Lukeman's statues of Davis and George were presented and unveiled on June 2, 1931 in a ceremony held in Statuary Hall in the United States Capitol. Adele Hayes-Davis, Jefferson Davis's great-granddaughter, officially unveiled the statue of Jefferson Davis. The United States Marine Band performed music including "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Dixie." Arthur Cook, a member of the office of the Architect of the Capitol who was in charge of the arrangements for the unveiling ceremony, claimed that the unveiling ceremony had the largest crowd ever gathered in Statuary Hall.Journalist Edgar S. Wilson and U.S. Senator Pat Harrison each delivered commemorative addresses honoring Jefferson Davis. Wilson favorably compared Davis to Abraham Lincoln, the President of the United States during the American Civil War between the United States of America and the Southern Confederacy. Wilson also read a March 10, 1884 speech that Davis gave to the Mississippi Legislature in its entirety, as well as a passage from Davis's book, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. In both the 1884 speech and the passage from his book, Davis was unrepentant for Secession and promoted the Confederacy as a heroic and justified Lost Cause.
Senator Harrison in his speech stated that Jefferson Davis was "entitled" to his place in Statuary Hall, "fixed in the history of a great and reunited country" alongside "his comrades – [Robert E.] Lee, [Wade] Hampton, [Joseph] Wheeler, [Alexander H] Stephens, [Edmund] Kirby Smith and James Z. George" in addition to "[Henry] Clay, [Daniel] Webster, [Lewis] Cass and [John C.] Calhoun." Harrison also addressed Mississippi's delay in placing statues in Statuary Hall:There never has been a day since [Mississippi] received the nation's gracious invitation when the slightest doubt was entertained that her first choice among all the array of distinguished and illustrious characters to occupy a place here would be Jefferson Davis. No other name is so closely interwoven with [Mississippi's] history and so securely riveted in the affection of her people. Without apology for the part she played in that tragic drama which divided the sections and tore the nation asunder [Mississippi] has realized the sensitive character of the national situation and believed that in the passing of years the scars of strife and the wounds of conflict would heal and the time would come when the tolerant spirit of the reunited people would concede to the people of both sections a conscientious discharge of duty as they saw it under the Constitution and the principles of our government.
Jefferson Davis [Daniel] Webster The Star-Spangled Banner Henry Augustus Lukeman Pat Harrison Mississippi Legislature [Robert E.] Lee James Z. George Southern Confederacy [Henry] Clay Constitution [Lewis] Cass The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government U.S. Senator [Joseph] Wheeler United States Davis, Jefferson legislation Secession [Alexander H] Stephens Abraham Lincoln Dixie Congress [John C.] Calhoun U.S. House of Representatives Confederacy as a heroic and justified Lost Cause. [Wade] Hampton United States Marine Band National Statuary Hall Architect of the Capitol George American Civil War Stone Mountain United States of America United States Capitol [Edmund] Kirby Smith Confederate memorial President of the United States