Confederacy

“ Turn, first, to the political, and you will see States, one after another, renouncing their relations with the Nation, and constituting a new government, under the name of Confederacy, with a new Constitution, making Slavery its corner-stone,—all of which they sought to maintain by arms, while, in aggravation of these perils, Foreign Powers gave ominous signs of speedy recognition and support. ”

“ But such considerations, important as they are in themselves, sink into insignificance when we reflect on the terrific evils which would result from disunion to every portion of the Confederacy—to the North, not more than to the South, to the East not more than to the West. ”

“ There is every reason to believe that at no distant day other States, identified in political principles and community of interests with those which you represent, will join this Confederacy, giving to its typical constellation increased splendor, to its Government of free, equal, and sovereign States a wider sphere of usefulness, and to the friends of constitutional liberty a greater security for its harmonious and perpetual existence. ”

“ The United States of America, my boy, and the well-known Southern Confederacy, are like two irascible terriers practising defiant strategy between two bones, the one being the festive negro-question, and the other the Union. ”

“ At present, the so-called Confederacy is a mere association of political bodies engaged in a rebellion against their legitimate Government. They are, indeed, recognized as belligerents, but not admitted into the family of nations as an independent and equal member. ”

“ A vast and ever-expanding Confederacy of intelligent and resolute men, leagued together in a Union of Confederate States, and pledged to secure to all men within its bounds a clear path, an unfettered start, and a fair chance in every laudable pursuit, was judged by him a civic undertaking too preciously freighted with promise and hope for the welfare of the world to be ever disrupted and destroyed by the disloyalty and the withdrawal of any one or any cluster of its constituent parts. ”

“ Proudly self-reliant, the Confederacy, knowing full well the character of the contest into which it was forced, with full trust in the superior qualities of its population, the superior valor of its soldiers, the superior skill of its generals, and above all in the justice of its cause, felt no need to appeal for the maintenance of its rights to other earthly aids, and it began and has continued this struggle with the calm confidence ever inspired in those who, with consciousness of right, can invoke the Divine blessing on their cause. ”

“ Those who had no homes—the slaves—either deserted by their owners or fancying they saw in that direction a glimmer of possible freedom, swarmed in flank and rear of every blue-clad column which invaded the Confederacy, by thousands and tens of thousands. ”

“ To the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy we hold out our hands freely, frankly, and gladly. We have no bitter memories to revive, no reproaches to utter. Differ in politics and in a thousand other ways we must and shall in all good nature, but never let us differ with each other on sectional or state lines, by race or creed. ”

“ The Confederacy, notwithstanding its severe losses, elated at having checked a movement from which the North had anticipated so much, and their whole available resources, both of wealth and population, wielded by a few bold, determined leaders, looked confidently forward to the final success of their arms. ”

“ The United States, not yet compacted by the means of rapid locomotion which to-day make every inhabitant of the land a neighbor of the National capital, were then still a straggling confederacy; and the members of that confederacy had, since the triumphant issue of the Revolution, more common memories of severe trials, sufferings, embarrassments, dangers, and anxieties together, than of cheering successes and of assured prosperity and well-being. ”

“ The Executive of the Union and Emancipation Society, in presenting their final Report, congratulate the members and friends of the Association on the auspicious termination of their labours.
Five years ago a section of the United States of America, then known as the Slave States, sought by revolt and armed force the disruption of the Republic, and declared an intention to establish a Confederacy, whose corner stone should be Slavery. ”

“ But it was the bid for decision of a Confederacy which was outnumbered in men, in resources, in the ultimate powers of endurance, and was already beginning to feel the growing pinch both in numbers and credit. ”

“ There's only one government in the world that can get you out of this difficulty; and that's the Confederate States of America, the grandest nation that ever existed.'
"Just as you said to me I says to Doc; 'Why, the Confederacy ain't a nation. It's been absolved forty years ago.'
"'That's a campaign lie,' says Doc. 'She's running along as solid as the Roman Empire. She's the only hope you've got. Now, you, being a Yank, have got to go through with some preliminary obsequies before you can get official aid. You've got to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate Government. ”

“ Whatever may have been our individual opinions and beliefs before the rebellion (variant enough at all times) , the attempted establishment of a confederacy avowedly based on slavery, proves beyond possibility of cavil that chattel slavery, to which we have been lenient without limit, is a temptation too great for the peace of the nation, and therefore the highest interests of the nation require its removal.
2. The simple fact of the Southern Confederacy is also the basis of our second proposition. ”

“ Davis
The States are sovereign, General Lee—for this principle we are fighting.
Lee
Then I think it may be time to ask ourselves, heart to heart, the question whether the Confederacy, as organized, does not carry within its own body the seeds of death? The rights of a state must somewhere yield to the supreme power of a nation. The Negro will make a brave soldier, and he can save the South. ”

“ They met and organized a Confederacy which they openly declared to be the first republic founded on the right and determination of the white man to enslave the black man; and, spreading their banners, declared themselves to the Christian world of the nineteenth century as a nation organized with the full purpose and intent of perpetuating slavery. ”

“ The Federal government may be called a dictatorship. Congress and the people surrendered certain of their powers and rights to a trusted man. The Confederacy was a grand socialized state in which the government did everything. It levied directly on the produce of the land and fixed prices; it managed the railroads ”

“ Two at least of the generals of the United States are engaged, unchecked by their Government, in exciting servile insurrection, and in arming and training slaves for warfare against their masters, citizens of the Confederacy. ”

“ It is not safe for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as one star differeth from another in glory. The great objects of humanity are best attained, when conformed to His laws and decrees in the formation of government as well as in all things else. Our Confederacy is founded on a strict conformity with those laws. This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, has become the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice!"
Thus far the declarations of the slave-holding Confederacy. ”

“ And thereby hangs this tale, and, as it proved, the fate of the Confederacy.
For, of course, I wanted to take presents home to my family. Very little question was there what these presents should be,—for I had no boys nor brothers. The women of the Confederacy had one want, which overtopped all others. They could make coffee out of beans; pins they had from Columbus; straw hats they braided quite well with their own fair hands; snuff we could get better than you could in "the old concern." But we had no hoop- [Pg 1372] skirts,—skeletons, we used to call them. ”

“ Southern officers resigned daily from the army and navy to go home and join the fortunes of their several States. Meantime, the Federal government moved about like a baby elephant loaded with shot, while the new Confederacy got men, money, arms, and munitions of war from every conceivable point. ”

“ We are not fighting for Slavery, we are fighting for Independence; and that or extermination we will have'. ... Thus it was not only incontestably settled but proclaimed, through the volunteered agency of two citizens, that the War must go on until the Confederacy should be recognized as an independent power, or till it should be utterly, finally overthrown. ”

“ Content with the positive benefits which their union produced, with the independence and safety from foreign aggression which it secured, these sagacious people respected the institutions of each other, however repugnant to their own principles and prejudices.
Our Confederacy, fellow-citizens, can only be preserved by the same forbearance. Our citizens must be content with the exercise of the powers with which the Constitution clothes them. ”

“ For I possess in no degree the confidence of our government, and now they have in my place one who does possess it, and who can accomplish what I could never have done, -- the concentration of our armies for the defense of the capital of the Confederacy. ”

“ Thus the sovereign States here represented have proceeded to form this Confederacy; and it is by abuse of language that their act has been denominated a revolution. They formed a new alliance, but within each State its government has remained; so that the rights of person and property have not been disturbed. ”

“ And so with the Union and Confederate soldiers.
The die was cast for war by political and fanatical agitators, and millions of the best men in the world rose to arms, nearly one-half of them minors, ready to sacrifice their lives as patriots for what they believed their rights assailed and likely to be lost; but after jousting about for four long and bloody years they found that each was jousting for the same object; that the Confederates had formed their Confederacy, [389] their Constitution and their laws almost identical with those of the Union. ”

“ As the war to put down rebellion progressed and our armies advanced farther and farther into the heart of the Confederacy, the most devoted and malignant adherents of the Confederate cause abandoned their homes and all that they could not easily take with them, and fled within the Confederate lines. ”

“ Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the Confederate States, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The State may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the Confederacy may be dissolved, and the Confederates preserve their Sovereignty. ”

“ The strength as well as the true glory of the Confederacy is founded on the prosperity and power of the several independent sovereignties of which it is composed and the certainty with which they can be brought into successful active cooperation through the agency of the Federal Government. ”

“ There were for discussion, as the issue of the war, the questions of union, slavery, confiscation, pains and penalties, forfeitures for taxes, limits of western Virginia—in fact, all civil society in the Confederacy was involved. I supposed that with these intelligent and sober-minded men the embarrassments and perils of the condition could be mitigated. I was then fully disposed for peace. I have never had a reply to the letter, though I was told there was one. ”

“ For nearly three years this Government has exercised unquestioned jurisdiction over many millions of willing and united people. It has met and defeated vast armies of invaders, who have in vain sought its subversion. Supported by the confidence and affection of its citizens, the Confederacy has lacked no element which distinguishes an independent nation according to the principles of public law. ”

“ The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded. ”

“ Let the states which are in rebellion see definitely and certainly that in no event will the states you represent ever join their proposed confederacy, and they cannot much longer maintain the contest... ”

“ When, therefore, this Confederacy was formed, and when neutral powers, while deferring action on its demand for admission into the family of nations, recognized it as a belligerent power, Great Britain and France made informal proposals about the same time that their own rights as neutrals should be guaranteed by our acceding as belligerents to the declaration of principles made by the Congress of Paris. ”

“ The smaller farmers, mechanics, merchants, and laborers. This class will probably number three-quarters of the whole; have, in fact, no real interest in the establishment of a Southern Confederacy, and have been led or driven into war on the false theory that they were to be benefited somehow—they knew not how. ”

“ By uniting their councils and arms, they might have acted both with greater force, and with more effect. The appearance of a national confederacy would have rendered it no less respectable among the people, than formidable to the crown ”

“ "If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone, 'Died of a theory.'" General Lee was brought before a committee to state his opinion as to the probable efficiency of negroes as soldiers, and disappointed the probable expectation by his unqualified advocacy of the proposed measure. ”

“ Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union " the subjoined extracts are made:
"article I. The style of this Confederacy shall be, the United States of America."
" Article II. Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the Confederation delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."
"article X. In determining questions in the United States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote." ”