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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.

Jefferson Davis

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Jefferson Davis
Age: 81 †
Born: 1808
Born: June 3
Died: 1889
Died: December 6
Businessperson
Former President Of The Confederate States Of America
Military Officer
Political Writer
Politician
Slaveholder
Fairview
Christian County
Kentucky
Jefferson Finis Davis
Jeff. Davis
Jefferson F. Davis
President Jefferson Davis
President Jeff. Davis
President Davis
His Excellency Jefferson Davis
Jeff Davis
J. D.
Rest
Decree
Existence
Origin
Law
Consent
Common
Slavery
Action
Service
Doe
Property
Right
Sin
Men
Divine

More quotes by Jefferson Davis

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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.
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Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.
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If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.
Jefferson Davis
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The authors of all our misfortune.
Jefferson Davis
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We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.
Jefferson Davis
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It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country they belong to America.
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Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people .
Jefferson Davis
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Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.
Jefferson Davis
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A government, to afford the needful protection and exercise proper care for the welfare of a people, must have homogeneity in its constituents. It is this necessity which has divided the human race into separate nations, and finally has defeated the grandest efforts which conquerors have made to give unlimited extent to their domain.
Jefferson Davis
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The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.
Jefferson Davis
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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.
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How idle is this prating about natural rights as though still containing all that had been forfeited.
Jefferson Davis
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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.
Jefferson Davis
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Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.
Jefferson Davis