Jefferson Davis

“ United as we now are, were a citizen of the United States, as an act of hostility to our country, imprisoned or slain in any quarter of the world, whether on land or sea, the people of each and every State of the Union, with one heart, and with one voice, would demand redress, and woe be to him against whom a brother’s blood cried to us from the ground. ”

“ The successful soldier when he returns from the field is met by a welcome proportionate to the leaves which he has added to the wreath of his country’s glory. Each has his reward; to one, the admiring listener at the hearthstone; to another, the triumphal reception; to all, the respect which patriotism renders to patriotic service. To the soldier who, in the early part of the Mexican war, set the seal of invincibility upon American arms, and subsequently by a signal victory dispersed and disorganized the regular army of Mexico, his countrymen voted the highest reward known to our government. ”

“ It can do nothing save that which you have given it power to perform. Where is the grant of the Constitution which confers on the federal government a right to determine what shall be property? Surely none such exists; that question it belongs to every community to settle for itself: you judge in your case; every other State must judge in its case. The federal government has no power to create or establish; more palpably still, it has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes to an agent that he may destroy your property? ”

“ Is the able-bodied man, who comes here to contribute to your national interests by building up your public works, or aiding in the erection of your architectural constructions, or who bears your flag in the hour of danger, and who bleeds and dies for your country, is he the pauper you desire to exclude? And who is the criminal? Is it he who, flying from the persecution of despotic governments, seeks our land as the Huguenot did, as did Soule, the stern American orator, as many others within your limits have done under more recent struggles for liberty in Europe? ”

“ If we have got to the point when it is treason to the United States to protect the rights and interests of our constituents, I ask why should they longer be represented here? why longer remain a part of the Union? If there is a dominant party in this Union which can deny to us equality, and the rights we derive through the Constitution; if we are no longer the freemen our fathers left us; if we are to be crushed by the power of an unrestrained majority, this is not the Union for which the blood of the Revolution was shed ”

“ I think he has not gone beyond the truth when he has placed Mississippi one of the first, if not the first, of the States of the Confederation in attachment to it. But, sir, even that deep attachment and habitual reverence for the Union, common to us all—even that, it may become necessary to try by the touchstone of reason. It is not impossible that they should unfurl the flag of disunion. It is not impossible that violations of the Constitution and of their rights, should drive them to that dread extremity. ”

“ Is a man a pauper merely because he comes here without property, without money in his purse? Go, look along your lines of internal improvements, where every mile has mingled with it the bones of some foreigner who labored to create it. Go to your battle fields, where your flag has been borne triumphantly, and where fresh laurels have been added to the brow of your country, and there you will find the sod dyed as deep by the blood of the foreign born as by that of the native citizen. ”

“ With every revolving year there will arise new motives for holding tenaciously to each other. With every revolving cycle there will come new sources of pride and national sentiment to the people. Year after your flag will grow more brilliant, by the addition of fresh stars, recording the growth of our political family, and onward, over land and over sea, the progress of American principles, of human liberty illustrated, and protected by the power of the United States, will hold its way to a triumph such as the earth has never witnessed. ”

“ And if it comes to the worst; if, availing themselves of a majority in the two Houses of Congress, our opponents should attempt to trample upon the Constitution; to violate the rights of the States; to infringe upon our equality in the Union, I believe that even in Massachusetts, though it has not had a representative in Congress for many a day, the State Rights Democracy, in whose breasts beats the spirit of the revolution, can and will whip the Black Republicans. ”

“ So long as we preserve, and appreciate the achievements of Jefferson and Adams, of Franklin and Madison, of Hamilton, of Hancock, and of Rutledge, men who labored for the whole country, and lived for mankind, we cannot sink to the petty strife which would sap the foundations, and destroy the political fabric our fathers erected, and bequeathed as an inheritance to our posterity forever.
Since the formation of the Constitution, a vast extension of territory, and the varied relations arising there from, have presented problems which could not have been foreseen. ”

“ I have an allegiance to those who have entrusted their interests to me, which every consideration of faith and of duty, which every feeling of honor, tells me is above all other political considerations. I trust I shall never find my allegiance there and here in conflict. God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union. If, sir, we have reached that hour in the progress of our institutions, it is past the age to which the Union should have lived. ”

“ Have we so degenerated, that we can no longer emulate their virtues? Have the purposes for which our Union was formed, lost their value? Has patriotism ceased to be a virtue, and is narrow sectionalism no longer to be counted a crime? Shall the North not rejoice that the progress of agriculture in the South has given to her great staple the controlling influence of the commerce of the world, and put manufacturing nations under bond to keep the peace with the United States? ”

“ It is a form of government such as the wit of man never devised until our fathers, with a wisdom that approached inspiration, framed the Constitution, and transmitted it as a legacy to us. It devolves upon every one of you, to see that each provision of that Constitution is cordially and faithfully observed. If cordially and faithfully observed, the powers of hell and of earth combined can never shake the happiness and prosperity of the people of the United States. ”

“ I see here a field of faces, assembled in the name of Democracy, and over it high, bright and multiplied for the occasion, as stars have been added by Democracy to the flag of our country, blaze the lights which typify democratic principles, pointing upward, to guide our country to that haven of prosperity which our fathers saw in the distant future, and which they left it for their sons to attain. ”

“ The land has mourned, and still mourns, the fall of its bravest and best, and truly are our laurels mingled with the cypress, ’tis well, and ’tis wise, ’tis natural and ’tis proper, that in looking on the laurels of our glory we should pause to pay a tribute to the cypress which weeps over them, and having paid this tribute to the gallant dead, the memory of whose service can never die, we pass to the consideration of their acts, and the beneficial results which their sacrifices have secured. When that war begun, our history recorded evidence only of the power of our people for defence. ”

“ From the slope of the Atlantic our population with ceaseless tide has poured into the wide and fertile valley of the Mississippi, with eddying whirl has passed to the coast of the Pacific, from the West and the East the tides are rushing towards each other—and the mind is carried to the day when all the cultivable and will be inhabited, and the American people will sign for more wildernesses to conquer. ”

“ Often it has been my duty to repel the accusations of others who sought to attribute to the State Rights Democracy opinions not their own, and to impute to them the purpose to agitate for the destruction of the government we inherited. As one of the State Rights party, I deny that the language published is a picture of me or my class, and I have as little disposition now, as at any former time, to separate myself from the body of the party, with which I have so long acted, which I rejoice to see in power at home, and daily more and more respected in the other States. ”

“ If Congress had the power to prohibit the introduction of slave property into the territories, what would be the purpose? Would it be to promote emancipation? That could not be the effect. In the first settlement of a territory the want of population and the consequent difficulty of procuring hired labor, would induce emigrants to take slaves with them; but if the climate and products of the country were unsuited to African labor—as soon as white labor flowed in, the owners of slaves would as a matter of interest, desire to get rid of them and emancipation would result. ”

“ If he turn to the front, your capacious harbor, studded with green islands of ever varying light and shade, and enlivened by all the stirring evidences of commercial activity, offer him the mingled charms of busy life and nature’s calm repose. A few miles further, and he may site upon the quiet shore to listen to the murmuring wave until the troubled spirit sinks to rest, and in the little sail that vanishes on the illimitable sea, we may find the type of the voyage which he is so soon to take, when, his ephemeral existence closed, he embarks for that better state which lies beyond the grave. ”

“ If now, in this struggle for the ascendency in power, one action should gain such predominance as would enable it, by modifying the Constitution and usurping new power, to legislate for the other, the exercise of that power would throw us back into the condition of the colonies. And if in the veins of the sons flows the blood of their sires, they would not fail to redeem themselves from tyranny even should they be driven to resort to revolution. ”

“ Citizen Soldiers:—I feel pleased and gratified at the exhibition I have witnessed of the military spirit and instruction of the volunteer militia of Maine. I acknowledge the compliment which has been paid to me, and I welcome it as the indication of the liberality and national sentiment which makes the militia of each State the effective, as they are the constitutional defenders of our whole country.
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. ”

“ As a condition precedent, the general government may require the recognition of its right to control the primary disposal of the land, but can have no right to impose a condition with the mandate that it shall be subsequently fulfiled and no power to enforce the mandate if the State admitted should refuse to comply. Not for all the land in Kansas, not for all the land between the Missouri and the Pacific ocean, not for all the land of the continent of North America, would I agree that the federal government should have the power to coerce a State. ”