Jefferson Davis

“ That errors of theory and practice should occur in the administration of a system of government as novel and complex as ours, should not excite surprise; and the facility with which reform has from time to time been introduced, proves how complete are the compensating advantages of our new system. Errors of judgment, or from want of information, cannot destroy the principles of our Government, and of such it was truly said “they are never dangerous while reason is left free to combat them.” ”

“ Thanks to the care of our fathers for the rights of minorities, an umpire was provided for such controversies, which, removed from the influence of popular excitement, and the power of political parties, was left free to discriminate between truth and error, and, without fear or favor, to do justice. That umpire has decided the issue in our favor; and, though placemen may evade, and fanatics rail, the judgment stands the rule of right, and claims the respect and obedience of every citizen of the United States. ”

“ The purpose for which we were assembled has been achieved, and we are about to disperse each and all in their appropriate sphere to labor for the common good. You have chosen our standard bearers not for their own, but for the public interest—for Democracy regards Government as the property of the people, and recognizes no proscriptive right to office. You have met the issues of the day as becomes a party whose characteristics are stability and progress. ”

“ Is it kindness, is it charity, is it sound policy, to transfer a useful and happy body of laborers from the protection of our laws, and the benefit of our civilization, that they may possess a liberty they cannot enjoy, suffer a privation for which to them no political privilege is an adequate compensation, and finally when left to themselves lapse into the barbarism of their ancestors? ”

“ All of these countries which can only be developed by slave labor in some of its forms, and which, with a sufficient supply of African slaves, would be made tributary to the great mission of the United States, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, and to establish peace and free trade with all mankind.
The demand for cotton increases more rapidly than the supply. A freer trade with China, adding the consumption of which her three hundred millions of people are capable, will, in a few years, require an increase of production, which can only be met by an additional supply of laborers. ”

“ The fame, the prosperity, the growth and happiness of our country, attest the adaptation of our theory to a confederation of Free and Sovereign States. We have pride in the past, we have zeal for the present; may we not have hope for the future? ”

“ If to restrain the vagrant, the vicious, and the incompetent, the possession of liberty by whom would be dangerous to society and injurious to themselves, be Slavery, then all civil government might be arraigned for having established that condition, and from the work-houses, the penitentiaries, the reform-schools, and the asylums, a cloud of degraded and unfortunate witnesses could be brought to sustain the arraignment. ”

“ How stands the case of the negro, in the non-slave-holding States? Free to go in advance of settlement, into the wilderness of the West, and there to found a colony of their own, exempt from the inferiority they must ever experience while in contact with the white man, they have continued to hang about the towns and cities, and generally to gain their subsistence by menial service to the white race. ”

“ Shall we not, when the commerce of the world, the interest of the United States, and that of Cuba, combine to recommend it, be justified in seeking to carry out the most settled policy of the United States, that of expansion! Growth is the attendant of vigorous existence. In nations as in organic bodies, the suspension of that law is the unfailing evidence of decline. ”

“ It has been so long the habit to speak of African Slavery as an evil only to be excused because forced upon us, and now irremediable—so many well-meaning persons have confounded the policy of other times and circumstances with the obligations of morality, that it has come to pass that our property in the labor of Africans is regarded as an exception to the general obligation of the Government to protect ”

“ The day, I hope, is not distant, when by the acquisition of tropical territory, we shall complete the circle of products.
What but fatuity could cause a commercial manufacturing people to overlook their advantage in such a relation as that which exists between the North and the South? Ours is an agricultural people, blessed with a fruitful soil and genial climate; the elements unite with man to render his labor profitable. ”

“ A vast expansion of territory, and the addition to the list of its productions of the great staples of our country’s exports, have given to free trade between the States a value which could not have been fully anticipated. All of the necessities, and nearly all of the luxuries of life, are now produced within the limits of the United States, and exchanged for each other without other charge than the cost of transportation. ”

“ The recent free discussion by the press, and on the forum, have dispelled delusions which had obscured the mind of a generation until even among ourselves it was more easy to find the apologist than the defender. The case is now so far reversed, that many Northern men have addressed themselves to the task of defending our constitutional rights, on the ground of their justice; and there is not probably an intelligent mind among our own citizens who doubts either the moral or the legal right of the institution of African Slavery as it exists in our country. ”

“ To such inquiry my answer would be, we have need not only to be assured to be justified, and it is a duty we owe to our ancestors, to ourselves and to posterity to vindicate our institutions from unjust reproach. To be right both in conscience and in the estimation of others is to be strong. From the time when, in vain reliance on the strength which unity of people and of language gave, impious man attempted on the plain of Shinar to defy the power of his Creator and was confounded and dispersed, never has there been any permanent prosperity which did not rest on the basis of virtue. ”

“ If the question were fairly submitted to the intelligent minds in any portion of our country, Shall the General Government have the meats which will enable it to give adequate protection to person and property of American citizens on the high seas, and wherever on land it has jurisdiction, I will not doubt what the answer would be. And this confidence is felt even by those who adopt delusive phrases to excite to prejudice; such as the adoption “of a slave code by Congress,” “to force Slavery on an unwilling people;” ”

“ Higher motives, stronger reasons must be adduced in the forum of conscience, and before the tribunal of nations. I will not weary you by a recapitulation of the long list, which is familiar to you, of precedents and provocations, but will only refer to the general basis on which the justice of our policy may be defended. To repel invasion, to secure intercourse between the States, and to protect their commerce on the high seas, are duties of the General Government so universally admitted, that the right to employ all lawful means for their fulfillment requires no argument. ”

“ Thought the defense of African Slavery (thus is it commonly called) is left to the South, the North are jointly benefited by it. Deduct from their trade and manufactures all which is dependent upon the products of slave labor, their prosperity would fade, and poverty would come upon them “as one that traveleth.” Our fathers wisely saw harmony in diversity, and mutuality in the opposite character of the climate, population, and pursuits of the people in the different States. But to them the proposition was far less apparent than it is to us. ”

“ At home we should have an acquisition to make, one which might wake the spirit of the day when the knights of Spain were the noblest of Europe, and their highest prowess was displayed in efforts to free their native land from the yoke of the infidel, a possession the loss of which shades the memory of the brightest achievements of her ancient renown. ”

“ It is not for office we strive, but for principle and the ends of justice. Let our standard bearer be he who can carry it to victory; above all, let him be one who will conceal no part of its inscription, but throw its folds most freely to the wind when the storm blows hardest. ”

“ But speculative philanthropy imagined that if a colony were established in the land of his forefathers, the African would there exhibit his capacity for self-government. With this view, in 1816, a Colonization Society was formed. Its purpose was the transfer of the free blacks from the United States to the coast of Africa, and the benign promise was the diffusion among their barbarian brethren of the civilization and Christianity which these colorists had acquired through servitude in America. ”

“ I trust that a sanguine temperament does not mislead me to the belief that the mists of sectional prejudice are steadily though slowly floating away, and that a sad experience will not prove to have been delusive, the hope which now shows to me the breaking of a brighter dawn, when promises to our country a happier day than this. ”

“ The West India Islands became marvels for their productiveness and so continued until man assuming to reverse the working of nature’s laws gave to the black a boon he could utilize or estimate save as it brought to him slothful or vicious indulgence, and thus remanding him to barbarism robbed him of the plenty, the comfort and the civilization with which in servitude he was blessed. Reckless, indeed, must that man be who in the face of the results which have followed negro emancipation in the West Indies and Hispano America would seek under similar circumstances to repeat the experiment. ”

“ If I may use the form of interrogation, is it not because I am prone to despair of the Republic, but because we are necessarily cognizant of the fact that the unity of the people of the States is disturbed by a sectional, fanatical hostility, as irrational as it is vicious. ”

“ But now, when the matter in controversy which has so long impeded and prevented the action of Congress has been finally decided according to the provisions of our fundamental law, there are those who seek to revive the controversy by indirection and deny the obligation of the General Government to give efficacy to constitutional rights which have been established beyond the limits of legitimate denial. ”

“ Whatever our future necessities may exact, or coming eventualities justify, posterity cannot fail to approve the forbearance of the United States in leaving so long and under so many provocations a weak and distant Government in possession of the gate which commands the great Valley of the Mississippi, destined to be, if it has not already become, the center of agricultural empire, and the source of our most valuable exports. ”

“ Regarding the slave trade as sanctioned by the immemorial usage of mankind, as a commerce recognized by the Constitution, but which, from motives of internal policy, it was thought proper to prohibit, and conceding that sufficient power for that purpose existed in the General Government, it may well be asked whether the fine of the act of 1818 is not excessive—whether the penalty of both fine and imprisonment does not so far exceed the offense as, at least, to be impolitic. ”

“ During the colonial condition, Great Britain not only protected the slave-trade, but denied to the Colonies the right to prohibit the importation of negro slaves into their respective territory. Now she is the source of an agitation against the United States, because the descendants of the negroes so imported are held in bondage.
The Northern States once held slaves, and their acts of emancipation generally followed the transfer of the property to the Southern States; their people engaged in the importation of African slaves, and now persecute the South, though holding by purchase from them ”

“ Land of the South, the home and birth-place of Washington, and Jefferson, and Henry, and Madison, and Jackson, and Clay, and Calhoun, can pigmies look down upon your colossal sons? When writings defame you should it excite more than the smile of derision or the feeling of contempt? ”

“ At no time has he asserted his equality by separating himself from the master race, to establish an independent community of his own. In the Northern States, where a false sentiment has prevailed, and the greatest efforts have been made by enthusiasts to raise the negro to social equality, he is still subjected to such odious discriminations, as persons fit to be free would not for a day voluntarily endure. ”