Jefferson Davis

“ The Constitution is the law supreme to every American. It is the plighted faith of our fathers; it is the hope of our posterity. I say, then, I come not to argue questions outside of or above the Constitution, but to plead the cause of right, of law and order, under the Constitution and to plead it to those who have sworn to abide by that obligation.
One of the fruitful sources, as I hold it, of the errors which prevail in our country, is the theory that this is a Government of one people; that the Government of the United States was formed by a mass. ”

“ It is our duty in this last hour to seize the pillars of our Government and uphold them, though we be crushed in the fall. Then what is our policy? Are we to drift into war? Are we to stand idly by, and allow war to be precipitated upon the country? Allow an officer of the army to make war? Allow an unconfirmed head of a department to make war? Allow a general of the army to make war? Allow a President to make war? No, sir. Our fathers gave to Congress the power to declare war, and even to Congress they gave no power to make war upon a State of the Union. ”

“ And among the things most odious to my mind is to find a man who enters upon a public office, under the sanction of the Constitution, and taking an oath to support the Constitution—the compact between the States binding each for the common defense and general welfare of the other—and retaining to himself a mental reservation that he will war upon the institutions and the property of any of the States of the Union. It is a crime too low to characterize as it deserves before this assembly. It is one which would disgrace a gentleman—one which a man with self-respect would never commit. ”

“ 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 as from the ground! ”

“ As we have shared in the toils, so we have gloried in the triumphs, of our country. In our hearts, as in our history, are mingled the names of Concord, and Camden, and Saratoga, and Lexington, and Plattsburg, and Chippewa, and Erie, and Moultrie, and New Orleans, and Yorktown, and Bunker Hill. Grouped together, they form a record of the triumphs of our cause, a monument of the common glory of our Union. ”

“ 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? ”

“ If so, not otherwise, we may agree with him who would reconcile us to the evils of war by the promise of "emancipation from the manufacturers of Manchester and Birmingham"; or leave unanswered the heresy boldly announced, though by history condemned, that war is the purifier, blood is the aliment, of free institutions. Sir, it is true that republics have often been cradled in war, but more often they have met with a grave in that cradle. Peace is the interest, the policy, the nature of a popular government. War may bring benefits to a few, but privation and loss are the lot of the many. ”

“ All we ask is to be let alone—that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. This we will, we must, resist to the direst extremity. The moment that this pretension is abandoned, the sword will drop from our grasp, and we shall be ready to enter into treaties of amity and commerce that can not but be mutually beneficial. So long as this pretension is maintained, with a firm reliance on that Divine Power which covers with its protection the just cause, we must continue to struggle for our inherent right to freedom, independence, and self-government. ”

“ We claim protection, first, because it is our right; secondly, because it is the duty of the General Government; and, thirdly, because we have entered into a compact together, which deprives each State of the power of using all the means which it might employ for its own defense. This is the general theory of the right of protection. What is the exception to it? Is there an exception? If so, who made it? Does the Constitution discriminate between different kinds of property? Did the Constitution attempt to assimilate the institutions of the different States confederated together? ”

“ Now, I believe—may I not say I believe? if not, then I hope—there is yet time, by the full, explicit declaration of the truth, to disabuse the popular mind, to arouse the popular heart, to expose the danger from lurking treason and ill-concealed hostility; to rally a virtuous people to their country's rescue, who, circling closer and deeper as the storm gathers fury, around the ark of their fathers' covenant, will place it in security, there happily to remain a sign of fraternity, justice, and equality, to our remotest posterity. ”

“ We have never asked for the army and the navy to protect us. On the soil of Mississippi, not the foot of a Federal soldier has been impressed since 1819, when, flying from the yellow fever, they sought refuge within the limits of our State; and on the soil of Mississippi there breathes not a man who asks for any other protection than that which our Constitution gives us, that which our strong arms afford, and the brave hearts of our people will insure in every contingency. ”

“ Shall that flag, which has gathered fresh glory in every war, and become more radiant still by the conquest of peace—shall that flag now be torn by domestic faction, and trodden in the dust by sectional rivalry? Shall we of the South, who have shared equally with you all your toils, all your dangers, all your adversities, and who equally rejoice in your prosperity and your fame—shall we be denied those benefits guaranteed by our compact, or gathered as the common fruits of a common country? ”

“ To coerce the States is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised.... What picture does this idea present to our view? A complying State at war with a non-complying State: Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another ... Here is a nation at war with itself. Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself—a government that can exist only by the sword?... But can we believe that one State will ever suffer itself to be used as an instrument of coercion? ”

“ Webster has said, and very justly so far as these United States are concerned: "The sovereignty of government is an idea belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in North America. Our governments are all limited. In Europe sovereignty is of feudal origin, and imports no more than the state of the sovereign. It comprises his rights, duties, exemptions, prerogatives, and powers. But with us all power is with the people. They alone are sovereign, and they erect what governments they please, and confer on them such powers as they please. ”

“ Is it taxable property? Is it the organization of the local government? Or is it all these combined with the people who possess them? Destroy the people, and yet not make war upon the State! To state the proposition is to answer it, by reason of its very absurdity. It is like making desolation, and calling it peace. There being, as it is admitted on every hand, no power to coerce a State, I ask what is the use of a garrison within a State where it needs no defense? The answer from every candid mind must be, there is none. ”

“ It is offensive to recommend legislation for the dissolution of the Union—offensive to the Senate and to the whole country. If this Union is ever to be dissolved, it must be by the action of the States and their people. Whatever power Congress holds, it bolds under the Constitution, and that power is but a part of the Union. Congress has no power to legislate upon that which will be the destruction of the whole foundation upon which its authority rests. ”

“ To argue that the man who follows the mandate of his State, resuming her sovereign jurisdiction and power, is disloyal to his allegiance to the United States, which allegiance he only owed through his State, is such a confusion of ideas as does not belong to an ordinary comprehension of our Government. It is treason to the principle of community independence. It is to recur to that doctrine of passive obedience which, in England, cost one monarch his head and drove another into exile; a doctrine which, since the Revolution of 1688, has obtained nowhere where men speak the English tongue. ”

“ At some future day, after our independence shall have been established, it is no improbable supposition that our present enemy may be tempted to abuse his naval power by depredations on our commerce, and that we may be compelled to assert our rights by offensive war. How is it to be carried on? Of what is the army to be composed? If this Government can not call on its arms-bearing population otherwise than as militia, and if the militia can only be called forth to repel invasion, we should be utterly helpless to vindicate our honor or protect our rights. ”

“ Whatever tended to lead the people of any of the States to feel that they could be relieved from their constitutional obligations by transferring them to the General Government, or that they might thus or otherwise evade or resist them, could not fail to be like the tares which the enemy sowed amid the wheat. The union of States, formed to secure the permanent welfare of posterity and to promote harmony among the constituent States, could not, without changing its character, survive such alienation as rendered its parts hostile to the security, prosperity, and happiness of one another. ”

“ Our fathers, learning wisdom from the experiments of Rome and of Greece—the one a consolidated republic, and the other strictly a confederacy—and taught by the lessons of our own experiment under the Confederation, came together to form a Constitution for 'a more perfect union,' and, in my judgment, made the best government which has ever been instituted by man. It only requires that it should be carried out in the spirit in which it was made, that the circumstances under which it was made should continue, and no evil can arise under this Government for which it has not an appropriate remedy. ”

“ Will any candid, well-informed man assert that, at any time between 1776 and 1790, a proposition to surrender the sovereignty of the States and merge them in a central government would have had the least possible chance of adoption? Can any historical fact be more demonstrable than that the States did, both in the Confederation and in the Union, retain their sovereignty and independence as distinct communities, voluntarily consenting to federation, but never becoming the fractional parts of a nation? ”