Jefferson Davis
All we ask is to be let alone.Collection: Alone
Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.Collection: History
The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the States, and which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the bills of rights of the States subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789, undeniably recognizes in the people the power to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of Government.Collection: Government
I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent the war, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came.Collection: War
Never be haughty to the humble or humble to the haughty.
If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.
To one who loves his country in all its parts, it is natural to rejoice in whatever contributes to the prosperity and honor and marks the stability and progress of any portion of its people.
Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctioned by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people.
Slavery existed before the formation of this Union. It derived from the Constitution that recognition which it would not have enjoyed without the confederation. If the States had not united together, there would have been no obligation on adjoining States to regard any species of property unknown to themselves.
It was one of the compromises of the Constitution that the slave property in the Southern States should be recognized as property throughout the United States.
A people morally and intellectually equal to self-government must also be equal in self-defence.
Every one must understand that, whatever be the evil of slavery, it is not increased by its diffusion. Every one familiar with it knows that it is in proportion to its sparseness that it becomes less objectionable. Wherever there is an immediate connexion between the master and slave, whatever there is of harshness in the system is diminished.
God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union.
To increase the power, develop the resources and promote the happiness of a Confederacy, it is requisite there should be so much of homogeneity that the welfare of every portion would be the aim of the whole.
It is not differences of opinion; it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.
African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.Collection: Blessing
I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence.Collection: War
The war...must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks...unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence,and that, or extermination, we WILL have.Collection: War
My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.Collection: Strong
Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.Collection: Earth
The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.Collection: Principles
Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so sacred, that had I known all that has come to pass, had I known what was to be inflicted upon me, all that my country was to suffer, all that our posterity was to endure, I would do it all over again.Collection: Country
Governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.Collection: Government
Truthfulness is a cornerstone in character, and if it be not firmly laid in youth, there will ever after be a weak spot in the foundation.Collection: Character
A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.Collection: Law
Let the gentleman go to Revelation to learn the decree of God - let him go to the Bible. . . . I said that slavery was sanctioned in the Bible, authorized, regulated, and recognized from Genesis to Revelation. . . . Slavery existed then in the earliest ages, and among the chosen people of God; and in Revelation we are told that it shall exist till the end of time shall come. You find it in the Old and New Testaments - in the prophecies, psalms, and the epistles of Paul; you find it recognized - sanctioned everywhere.Collection: People
The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.Collection: War
Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are Sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a Sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.Collection: Rights
If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.Collection: Men
Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.Collection: War
The Slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline, and thus made unfit for slavery. And as soon as he becomes unfit for slavery, the master will no longer desire to hold him as a slave.Collection: Discipline
Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know; history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.Collection: Liars
Be not haughty with the humble; be not humble with the haughty.Collection: Humble
Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.Collection: Men
The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language.Collection: Government
It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country; they belong to America.Collection: Country
The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered on a new and enlarged arena.Collection: Civil War
I will admit no bond that holds me to a party a day longer than I agree to its principles. When men meet together to confer, and ascertain whether or not they do agree, and find that they differ - radically, essentially, irreconcilably differ - what belongs to an honorable position except to part? They cannot consistently act together any longer.Collection: Party
Lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished—a reunited country.Collection: Country
A government, to afford the needful protection and exercise proper care for the welfare of a people, must have homogeneity in its constituents. It is this necessity which has divided the human race into separate nations, and finally has defeated the grandest efforts which conquerors have made to give unlimited extent to their domain.Collection: Exercise
Our government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices.Collection: Agency
Your little army, derided for its want of arms, derided for its lack of all the essential material of war, has met the grand army of the enemy, routed it at every point, and now it flies, inglorious in retreat before our victorious columns. We have taught them a lesson in their invasion of the sacred soil of Virginia.Collection: War
It is a duty we owe to posterity to see that our children shall know the virtues, and rise worthy of their sires.Collection: Children
Sir, it is true that republics have often been cradled in war, but more often they have met with a grave in that cradle. Peace is the interest, the policy, the nature of a popular Government. War may bring benefits to a few, but privation and loss are the lot of the many. An appeal to arms should be the last resort, and only by national rights or national honor can it be justified.Collection: War
Butler is branded a felon, an outlaw, an enemy of Mankind, and so ordered that in the event of his capture, the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging.Collection: War
At Rest An American Soldier And Defender of the Constitution.Collection: Tombstone
We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.Collection: Sacrifice
A restitution of the Union has been rendered forever impossible.Collection: War
Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people .Collection: Long