40 Top Jefferson Davis Quotes That Reflect His Mind
All we ask is to be let alone.
African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.
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.
The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena.
Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.
The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.
Never be haughty to the humble or humble to the haughty.
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.
If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a theory.
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.
Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctioned by its justice and sustained by a virtuous 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.
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.
Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know; history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.
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.
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.
A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.
Not mine, oh, Lord, but thine.
Garfield's assassination attempt made "the whole nation care".
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.
Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.
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.
A people morally and intellectually equal to self-government must also be equal in self-defence.
If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.
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.
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.
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.
Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.
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.
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.
