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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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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.
Forfeited
Containing
Idle
Rights
Though
Natural
Stills
Still

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Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.
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It is not differences of opinion it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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Be not haughty with the humble be not humble with the haughty.
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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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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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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.
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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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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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We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.
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The authors of all our misfortune.
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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.
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I will admit no bond that holds me to a party a day longer than I agree to its principles. When men meet together to confer, and ascertain whether or not they do agree, and find that they differ - radically, essentially, irreconcilably differ - what belongs to an honorable position except to part? They cannot consistently act together any longer.
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Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.
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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.
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Pray excuse me. I cannot take it.
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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.
Jefferson Davis