The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government Quotes

“It early became manifest that great reliance must be placed on the introduction of articles of prime necessity through the blockaded ports. A vessel, capable of stowing six hundred and fifty bales of cotton, was purchased by the agent in England, and kept running between Bermuda and Wilmington. Some fifteen to eighteen successive trips were made before she was captured. Another was added, which was equally successful. These vessels were long, low, rather narrow, and built for speed. They were mostly of pale sky-color, and, with their lights out and with fuel that made little smoke, they ran to and from Wilmington with considerable regularity.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“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. To swear that he will support the Constitution, to take an office which belongs in many of its relations to all the States, and to use it as a means of injuring a portion of the States of whom he is thus an agent, is treason to everything that is honorable in man.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“For the ammunition and equipment required for the infantry and artillery, a good laboratory and workshop had been established at Richmond. The arsenals were making preparations for furnishing ammunition and knapsacks; but generally, what little was done in this regard was for local purposes. Such was the general condition of ordnance and ordnance stores in May, 1861.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“I thought myself better adapted to command in the field; and Mississippi had given me the position which I preferred to any other—the highest rank in her army. It was, therefore, that I afterward said, in an address delivered in the Capitol, before the Legislature of the State, with reference to my election to the Presidency of the Confederacy, that the duty to which I was thus called was temporary, and that I expected soon to be with the Army of Mississippi again.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“or to add to the number of slaves.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“No moral nor sentimental considerations were really involved in either the earlier or later controversies which so long agitated and finally ruptured the Union. They were simply struggles between different sections, with diverse institutions and interests.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“The Constitution expressly forbade any interference by Congress with the slave-trade—or,”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Will any candid, well-informed man assert that, at any time between 1776 and 1790, a proposition to surrender the sovereignty of the States”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Toward you individually, as well as to those whom you represent, I would that I had the power now to say there shall be peace between us for ever. I would that I had the power now to say the intercourse and the commerce between the States, if they can not live in one Union, shall still be uninterrupted; that all the social relations shall remain undisturbed; that the son in Mississippi shall visit freely his father in Maine, and the reverse; and that each shall be welcomed when he goes to the other, not by himself alone, but also by his neighbors; and that all that kindly intercourse which has subsisted between the different sections of the Union shall continue to exist. This is not only for the interest of all, but it is my profoundest wish, my sincerest desire,”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“When they spoke of revolution they meant an unalienable right. When they declared as an unalienable right the power of the people to abrogate and modify their form of government whenever it did not answer the ends for which it was established, they did not mean that they were to sustain that by brute force. They meant that it was a right; and force could only be invoked when that right was wrongfully denied. Great Britain denied the right in the case of the colonies, and therefore our revolution for independence was bloody. If Great Britain had admitted the great American doctrine, there would have been no blood shed;”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Now, I ask, where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a State; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and, if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States?”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Let me tell that Senator that the case of General Washington has no such application as he supposes. It was a case of insurrection in the State of Pennsylvania; and the very message from which he read communicated the fact that Governor Mifflin thought it was necessary to call the militia of the adjoining States to aid him. President Washington coöperated with Governor Mifflin; he called the militia of adjoining States to coöperate with those of Pennsylvania. He used the militia, not as a standing army. It was by the consent of the Governor; it was by his advice. It was not the invasion of the State; it was not the coercion of the State; but it was aiding the State to put down insurrection, and in the very manner provided for in the Constitution itself.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Senators, we are rapidly drifting into a position in which this is to become a government of the army and navy; in which the authority of the United States is to be maintained, not by law, not by constitutional agreement between the States, but by physical force; and will you stand still and see this policy consummated?”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“I can speak for myself—and I have no right to speak for others—when I say, that, if I belonged to a party organized on the basis of making war on any section or interest in the United States, if I know myself, I would instantly quit it. We have made no war against you. We have asked no discrimination in our favor.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Mr. Madison, who has been called sometimes the father of the Constitution, upon the same question, said: "A union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“The great principle which lay at the foundation of this fixed standard, the Constitution of the United States, was the equality of rights between the States. This was essential; it was necessary; it was a step which had to be taken first, before any progress could be made.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“I read from Elliott's "Debates" (page 327). Among her resolutions of ratification is the following: "That the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the Government thereof, remain to the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments to which they may have granted the same.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“The Declaration of Independence was made by the colonies, each for itself. The recognition of their independence was not for the colonies united, but for each of the colonies which had maintained its independence; and so, when the Constitution was formed, the delegates were not elected by the people en masse, but they came from each one of the States; and when the Constitution was formed it was referred, not to the people en masse, but to the States severally, and severally by them ratified and approved.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“But, while we do so, we declare that it is our belief that the Democratic party is now recognized as that only existing national party in the United States—the only constitutional party—the only party which by its present principles is competent to govern these United States, whose principles are based upon the Constitution—the only party with a platform coextensive with this great Union—this is the great Democratic party.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“It is a poor evasion for any man to say: "I make war on the rights of one whole section; I make war on the principles of the Constitution; and yet, I uphold the Union, and I desire to see it protected." Undermine the foundation, and still pretend that he desires the fabric to stand! Common sense rejects it. No one will believe the man who makes the assertion, unless he believes him under the charitable supposition that he knows not what he is doing.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Mr. President, is there such incompatibility of interest between the two sections of this country that they can not profitably live together? Does the agriculture of the South injure the manufactures of the North? On the other hand, are they not their life-blood? And think you, if one portion of the Union, however great it might be in commerce and manufactures, was separated from all the agricultural districts, that it would long maintain its supremacy”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“The son of a Revolutionary soldier, attachment to this Union was among the first lessons of my childhood; bred to the service of my country, from boyhood to mature age, I wore its uniform. Through the brightest portion of my life I was accustomed to see our flag, historic emblem of the Union, rise with the rising and fall with the setting sun. I look upon it now with the affection of early love, and seek to preserve it by a strict adherence to the Constitution, from which it had its birth, and by the nurture of which its stars have come so much to outnumber its original stripes. 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?”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“We will not permit aggressions. We will defend our rights; and, if it be necessary, we will claim from this Government, as the barons of England claimed from John, the grant of another Magna Charta for our protection.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Have we not a right to appeal to you, as brethren bound by the compact of our fathers, that you should, with due regard to your own rights and interests and constitutional obligations, do all that is necessary to preserve our peace and promote our prosperity? If, sir, the seeds of disunion have been sown broadcast over this land, I ask by whose hand they have been scattered? If, sir, we are now reduced to a condition when the powers of this Government are held subservient to faction; if we can not and dare not legislate for the organization of territorial governments—I ask, sir, who is responsible for it? And I can with proud reliance say, it is not the South—it is not the South! Sir, every charge of disunion which is made on that part of the South which I in part represent, and whose sentiments I well understand, I here pronounce to be grossly calumnious. The conduct of the State of Mississippi in calling a convention has already been introduced before the Senate; and on that occasion I stated, and now repeat, that it was the result of patriotism, and a high resolve to preserve, if possible, our constitutional Union; that all its proceedings were conducted with deliberation, and it was composed of the first men of the State.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“The several States agree 'not to keep troops or ships of war in time of peace.' 194 They further stipulate that, 'a well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“On this point you say: `But did the necessity exist in this case? The conscription act can not aid the Government in increasing its supply of arms or provisions, but can only enable it to call a larger number of men into the field. The difficulty has never been to get men. The States have already furnished the Government more than it can arm,' etc.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“As it became evident that the contest would be long and severe, better measures of preparation were enacted. I was authorized to call out and place in the military service for three years, unless the war should sooner end, all white men residents of the Confederate States between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five years, and to continue those already in the field until three years from the date of their enlistment. But those under eighteen years and over thirty-five were required to remain ninety days.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“Yet the Government entered on its second year without a floating debt and with its credit unimpaired. The total expenditures of the first year, ending February 1, 1862, amounted to one hundred and seventy million dollars.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“The chief armories were at Richmond and Fayetteville, North Carolina. The former turned out about fifteen hundred stands per month, and the latter only four hundred per month, for want of operatives. To meet the want of cavalry arms, a contract was made for the construction in Richmond of a factory for Sharp's carbines; this being built, it was then converted into a manufactory of rifle-carbines, caliber .58.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

“To get leather, each department procured its quota of hides, made contracts with the tanners, obtained hands for them by exemptions from the army, got transportation over the railroads for the hides and for supplies. To the varied functions of this bureau was finally added that of assisting the tanners to procure the necessary supplies for the tanneries. A fishery, even, was established on Cape Fear River to get oil for mechanical purposes, and at the same time food for the workmen. In cavalry equipments the main thing was to get a good saddle which would not hurt the back of the horse. For this purpose various patterns were tried, and reasonable success was obtained. One of the most difficult wants to supply in this branch of the service was the horseshoe for cavalry and artillery. The want of iron and of skilled labor was strongly felt. Every wayside blacksmith-shop accessible, especially those in and near the theatre of operations, was employed. These, again, had to be supplied with material, and the employees exempted from service.”
― Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government