So I listen to a podcast called History That Doesn't Suck, and during episodes that took place too long ago for recordings to exist, the host assigns voices to each person so you can tell who's who when documents are being read. This includes doing accents for a lot of people--French people get French accents, the Founding Fathers get an approximation of what we think their accent sounded like, and so on.
Naturally, when he did the Civil War, people from the South had southern accents. He even did his best to make sure the accent matched the part of the South the person was from! (He was only partially successful, but it was a genuine and sincere effort.)
The "southern accents are dumb" stereotype is so ingrained he got a letter from a listener in the South asking why he made Jefferson Davis sound like an idiot.
So we're clear: Jefferson Davis was a repugnant human being, but he was also accomplished and intelligent. He had a respected military record before he became a traitor, and indeed "he used to be so good" was one reason Lincoln was like "I won't be mad if he gets away before we have to go to trial." He didn't become President of the Confederacy by being stupid.
He certainly said things that make him sound stupid to modern ears. But it was his words and his poor performance as a commander-in-chief, not his (educated-guess) accent that made him sound that way. And someone who shared that accent thought the accent made him sound even worse.
It's a stereotype we need to break. It's utterly unfair.
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