Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctioned by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people.
— Jefferson Davis
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.
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.
If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.
A people morally and intellectually equal to self-government must also be equal in self-defence.
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.
God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union.
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.
Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.
Never be haughty to the humble or humble to the haughty.
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.
It is not differences of opinion; it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.
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.
All we ask is to be let alone.
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.
