It clearly shows that this is Davis attitude in November.. he sees no need for armed slaves.. fine by me.....but only two short months later he sees such a need to arm slaves he is trying to purchase 40,000 of them and doing all that he can to beg the politicians in congress to draft slaves in large numbers for arming.
Davis so drasticly switched positions 180%... it shows he either was woefully behind in his awareness of what was really going on, or else, like he had already done with Ewell and Cleburne's pointed warnings, and with now Lee's urgent need, Davis just kept whistling Dixie past the graveyard, hoping it would all go away, until things got so unquestionably bad, so irreversable that even he himself could no longer deny the reality that he had dismissed now for years.
What Davis denied in November, he was pleading for in January, and was rejected outright by the CSA congress in March. And he was running as fast as he could to get away in April because of his lack of forsight and preparation.
Military commanders had begged him since 1861 to emancipate and draft slaves, "if we are to secure our Independence". He not only failed to act, he didn't even work on it as a back-up plan in readiness. At every turn of events he put slavery ahead of Independence. If he hadn't he would have sacrificed everthing, including slavery, to guarantee Independence. Read Oates again. he says if they had had 100,000 emancipated black to fight alongside their wonderful military no power on earth would have defeated them or denied them their soveriegnty.
It wasn't done. Emancipation and arming slaves was done on a limited unofficial basis, and NEVER became official CSA policy, even when Davis and Lee both pleaded for it to be done.