"For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to mourn; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune for the South."
-- Jefferson Davis on the assassination of Lincoln.
"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."
-- Jefferson Davis in a conversation with James R. Gilmore and James F. Jaquess, who were conducting their own unofficial peace mission to Richmond during 1864.
"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"
-- Jefferson Davis February 16, 1861
Last edited by johan_steele; 06-09-2005 at 04:55 PM.
Reason: typo fix
President Jefferson Davis: "If this action is once tolerated, where will it end? Where is constitutional liberty? What strength is there in bills of rights-in limitation of power? What new hope for mankind is to be found in written constitutions, what remedy which did not exist under kings of emperors? If the doctrines thus announced by the government of the United States are conceded, then look through either end of the political telescope, and one sees only an empire, and the once famous Declaration of Independence trodden in the dust of as a "glittering generality," and the compact of the union denounced as a "flaunting lie". I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it. Those who submit to such consequence without resistance are not worthy the liberties and rights to which they were born, and deserve to be made slaves. Such must be the verdict of mankind."
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(Message edited by johan_steele on March 23, 2004)
__________________ Thea
No one has permission to use any material from any of my posts on any CWT forum, the archives, or any other forum without my express written permission.
March 16, 1861:
On this date in 1861, Jefferson Davis arrived in Montgomery to accept the post of Provisional President of the newly organized Confederate States of America. After making speeches at stops all along the rail route from Atlanta, Davis was tired but agreed to speak once more to the excited throng that awaited him in Montgomery. He told them in part "...now we are brethren, not in name, merely, but in fact-men of one flesh, one bone, one interest, one purpose, and of identity of domestic institutions," adding "I will devote to the duties of the high office to which I have been called all I have of heart, of head, and of hand."
(Message edited by johan_steele on March 25, 2004)
__________________ Thea
No one has permission to use any material from any of my posts on any CWT forum, the archives, or any other forum without my express written permission.
Remarks in Mississippi City, Mississippi, undated, 1888.
"Mr. Chairman and Fellow Citizens: Ah, pardon me, the laws of the United States no longer permit me to designate you as fellow citizens, but I am thankful that I may address you as my friends. I feel no regret that I stand before you this afternoon a man without a country, for my ambition lies buried in the grave of the Confederacy. There has been consigned not only my ambition, but the dogmas upon which that Government was based. The faces I see before me are those of young men; had I not known this I would not have appeared before you. Men in whose hands the destinies of our Southland lie, for love of her I break my silence, to speak to you a few words of respectful admonition. The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and its aspirations; before you lies the future--a future full of golden promise; a future of expanding national glory, before which all the world shall stand amazed. Let me beseech you to 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."
Amen,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms.
"Although the Confederacy as an organization may have ceased to exist, the fundamental principles, the eternal truths, uttered when our colonies in 1776 declared their independence, on which the Confederation of 1781 and the Union of 1788 were formed, and which animated and guided the Confederacy of 1861, yet live, and in God's appointed place and time, will prevail." --Jefferson Davis
__________________ Thea
No one has permission to use any material from any of my posts on any CWT forum, the archives, or any other forum without my express written permission.
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