John H. Aughey

“ Do not destroy the government which has so long protected you, and which has never in a single instance oppressed you. Pull not down the fair fabric which our patriot fathers reared at vast expense of blood and treasure. Do not, like the blind Samson, pull down the pillars of our glorious edifice, and cause death, desolation, and ruin. Perish the hand that would thus destroy the source of all our political prosperity and happiness. Let the parricide who attempts it receive the just retribution which a loyal people demand, even his execution on a gallows, high as Haman’s. ”

“ The question is often asked, is slavery sinful in itself? My observation has been extensive, embracing eight slave States, and I have never yet seen any example of slavery that I did not deem sinful. If slavery is not sinful in itself, I must have always seen it out of itself. I have observed its workings during eleven years, amongst a professedly Christian people, and cannot do otherwise than pronounce it an unmitigated curse. It is a curse to the white man, it is a curse to the black man. ”

“ We are often told that the North will not return fugitive slaves. Will secession remedy this grievance? Will secession give us any more slave territory? No free government ever makes a treaty for the rendition of fugitive slaves—thus recognising the rights of the citizens of a foreign nation to a species of property which it denies to its own citizens. Even little Mexico will not do it. Mexico and Canada return no fugitives. In the event of secession, the United States would return no fugitives, and our peculiar institution would, along our vast border, become very insecure ”

“ I feel that I am preaching as a dying man to dying men, and I beseech you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and ye shall be saved. Trust in him for salvation, for he is faithful who has promised. God has never said to any, seek ye my face in vain. By the love and mercy of God, by the terrors of the judgment, by the sympathy and compassion of Jesus, I entreat you, my fellow-prisoners, to seek an interest, a present interest, in the great salvation! ”

“ Compromise with the Yankees, after the election of Lincoln, is treason against the South; and still its syren voice is listened to by the demagogue submissionists. We should never have made any compromise, for in every case we surrendered rights for the sake of peace. No concession of the scared Yankees will now prevent secession. They now understand that the South is in earnest, and in their alarm they are proposing to yield us much; but the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed, and our determination shall ever be, No union with the flat-headed, nigger-stealing, fanatical Yankees. ”

“ Every night the woods resound with the deep-mouthed baying of the bloodhounds. The slaves are said by some to love their masters; but it requires the terrors of bloodhounds and the fugitive slave law to keep them in bondage. You in the North are compelled to act the part of the bloodhounds here, and catch the fugitives for the planters of the South. Free negroes are sold into bondage for the most trivial offences. ”

“ Vandalism is everywhere reprehensible. The proper policy I believe to be this: Let the Union army be supplied with provisions, so far as practicable, from the territory occupied. Let the slaves find protection and employment on their arrival within the Union lines. Despise not their valuable services. Let it be proclaimed that for every Union citizen of the South who is slain for his adherence to the old flag, a rebel prisoner shall be executed, and that the confiscated property of Union men shall be restored, at the cost of rebel sympathizers in the vicinity. ”