Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Finis Daviswas an American politician who was a U.S. Representative and Senator from Mississippi, the 23rd U.S. Secretary of War, and the President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. He took personal charge of the Confederate war plans but was unable to find a strategy to defeat the more populous and industrialized Union. His diplomatic efforts failed to gain recognition from any foreign country, and at home, the collapsing Confederate economy forced his government...
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth3 June 1808
CityFairview, KY
It was one of the compromises of the Constitution that the slave property in the Southern States should be recognized as property throughout the United States.
Every one must understand that, whatever be the evil of slavery, it is not increased by its diffusion. Every one familiar with it knows that it is in proportion to its sparseness that it becomes less objectionable. Wherever there is an immediate connexion between the master and slave, whatever there is of harshness in the system is diminished.
It is a duty we owe to posterity to see that our children shall know the virtues, and rise worthy of their sires.
My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.
If you will not have it thus: if in the pride of power, if in contempt of reason and reliance upon force, you say we shall not go, but shall remain as subjects to you, then, gentlemen of the North, a war is to be inaugurated the like of which men have not seen....
God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union.
Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.
It is not differences of opinion; it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.
Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people .
It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country; they belong to America.
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. An appeal to arms should be the last resort, and only by national rights or national honor can it be justified.
Your little army, derided for its want of arms, derided for its lack of all the essential material of war, has met the grand army of the enemy, routed it at every point, and now it flies, inglorious in retreat before our victorious columns. We have taught them a lesson in their invasion of the sacred soil of Virginia.
We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.
Be not haughty with the humble; be not humble with the haughty.