Video: 'Jefferson Davis Resigns the Senate'

(Wednesday, January 21, 1861) — Calling it “the saddest day of my life,” Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other Southerners whose states had seceded from the Union resigned today from the U.S. Senate.

Davis, who resigned 12 days after Mississippi seceded from the Union, would later became president of the Confederate States of America, formed to preserve white supremacy and the institution of slavery in the South.