Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
All we ask is to be let alone.
Pray excuse me. I cannot take it.
The authors of all our misfortune.
Never be haughty to the humble or humble to the haughty.
At Rest An American Soldier And Defender of the Constitution.
Be not haughty with the humble; be not humble with the haughty.
A restitution of the Union has been rendered forever impossible.
Our armies were in as much chaos in victory as theirs in defeat.
Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together.
Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.
Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.
Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.
If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.
A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.
A people morally and intellectually equal to self-government must also be equal in self-defence.
The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered on a new and enlarged arena.
African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.
How idle is this prating about natural rights as though still containing all that had been forfeited.
We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.
The troops of other states have their reputation to gain, the sons of the Alamo have theirs to maintain.
God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union.
Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know; history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.
It is a duty we owe to posterity to see that our children shall know the virtues, and rise worthy of their sires.
It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country; they belong to America.
Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.
The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.
Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.
The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and its aspirations; before you lies the future-a future full of golden promise.
Truthfulness is a cornerstone in character, and if it be not firmly laid in youth, there will ever after be a weak spot in the foundation.
Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctioned by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people.
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 not differences of opinion; it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.
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.
I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent the war, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came.
The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.
Lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished—a reunited country.
To one who loves his country in all its parts, it is natural to rejoice in whatever contributes to the prosperity and honor and marks the stability and progress of any portion of its people.
Governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.
Butler is branded a felon, an outlaw, an enemy of Mankind, and so ordered that in the event of his capture, the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging.
The Slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline, and thus made unfit for slavery. And as soon as he becomes unfit for slavery, the master will no longer desire to hold him as a slave.
To increase the power, develop the resources and promote the happiness of a Confederacy, it is requisite there should be so much of homogeneity that the welfare of every portion would be the aim of the whole.
If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.
For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to mourn; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune for the South.
Our government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices.
The war...must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks...unless you acknowledge our right to self-government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence,and that, or extermination, we WILL have.
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.
The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the States, and which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the bills of rights of the States subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789, undeniably recognizes in the people the power to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of Government.
Slavery existed before the formation of this Union. It derived from the Constitution that recognition which it would not have enjoyed without the confederation. If the States had not united together, there would have been no obligation on adjoining States to regard any species of property unknown to themselves.
The withdrawal of a State from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the State remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a Sovereign a 'rebellion' is a gross abuse of language.
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.