Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

English Italiano Polski עברית Français Português فارسی Español 中文 Русский Deutsch العربية हिन्दी 日本語 Ελληνικά Latina

Jefferson Davis

27 quotes

“Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know; history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Debate in the House of Representatives, (6 February 1846).
“Unfortunately, the opinion has gone forth that no politician dares to be the advocate of peace when the question of war is mooted. That will be an evil hour — the sand of our republic will be nearly run — when it shall be in the power of any demagogue, or fanatic, to raise a war-clamor, and control the legislation of the country. The evils of war must fall upon the people, and with them the war-feeling should originate. We, their representatives, are but a mirror to reflect the light, and never should become a torch to fire the pile.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1846 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Congress, 1846.
“Do they find in the history of St. Domingo, and in the present condition of Jamaica, under the recent experiments which have been made upon the institution of slavery in the liberation of the blacks, before God, in his wisdom, designed it should be done — do they there find anything to stimulate them to future exertion in the cause of abolition? Or should they not find there satisfactory evidence that their past course was founded in error?”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, 1850
“Among our neighbors of Central and Southern America, we see the Caucasian mingled with the Indian and the African. They have the forms of free government, because they have copied them. To its benefits they have not attained, because that standard of civilization is above their race. Revolution succeeds Revolution, and the country mourns that some petty chief may triumph, and through a sixty days' government ape the rulers of the earth.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech, 1858
“What security have you for your own safety if every man of vile temper, of low instincts, of base purpose, can find in his own heart a higher law than that which is the rule of society, the Constitution, and the Bible? These higher-law preachers should be tarred and feathered, and whipped by those they have thus instigated. This, my friends, is what was called in good old revolutionary times, Lynch Law. It is sometimes the very best law, because it deals summary justice upon those who would otherwise escape from all other kinds of punishment.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York, 1858.
“We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply in the Senate to William H. Seward (29 February 1860), Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol. As quoted in The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277–84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st S…
“One of the fruitful sources, as I hold it, of the errors which prevail in our country, is the theory that this is a government of one people; that the government of the United States was formed by a mass; and therefore it is taken that all are responsible for the institutions and policies of each. The government of the United States is a compact between the sovereign members who formed it; and if there be one feature common to all the colonies planted upon the shores of America, it was the steady assertion of, and uncompromising desire for, community independence.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Senate speech (7 May 1860)
“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.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply in the Senate to a speech of Senator Douglas, May 1860.
“...How idle is this prating about natural rights as though still containing all that had been forfeited.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1860, Senate debate.
“It would grant me much relief to learn your sons were engaged matrimonially to other white men if I was previously faced with the spectre of those same sons wedding negro women, slave or free, and siring negro sons that could presume to claim inheritance of your namesakes and property, or worse, equality with your purer grandchildren.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1860, Senate debate on legal status of interracial relationships.
“There is a relation belonging to this species of property, unlike that of the apprentice or the hired man, which awakens whatever there is of kindness or of nobility of soul in the heart of him who owns it; this can only be alienated, obscured, or destroyed, by collecting this species of property into such masses that the owner is not personally acquainted with the individuals who compose it.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Senate speech, 1860.
“[[Property|[P]roperty]] in slaves, recognized as such by the local law of any of the States of the Union, shall stand on the same footing in all constitutional and federal relations as any other species of property so recognized; and, like other property, shall not be subject to be divested or impaired by the local law of any other State, either in escape thereto or of transit or sojourn of the owner therein; and in no case whatever shall such property be subject to be divested or impaired by any legislative act of the United States, or of any of the Territories thereof.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Compromise proposal (24 December 1860)
“Are we, in this age of civilization and political progress... to roll back the whole current of human thought, and again return to the mere brute force which prevails between beasts of prey, as the only method of settling questions between men?”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (1861)
“We feel that our cause is just and holy... [W]e seek no conquest... [A]ll we ask is to be left alone.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Message to Confederate Congress (29 April 1861)
“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.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (March 1861), as quoted in Look Away!: A History of the Confederate States of America (2002), by William C. Davis, New York: The Free Press, p. 137
“If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a theory.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, quoting a remark he had made in 1864.
“We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence - and that, or extermination, we will have.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1864 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Reply to James R. Gilmore, 1864
“The past is dead; let it bury its dead. Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling. Make your place in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished – a reunited country.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Tis been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon, but repentance must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented. Remembering as I must all which has been suffered, all which has been lost, disappointed hopes and crushed aspirations, yet I deliberately say, if it were to do over again, I would again do just as I did in 1861.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In 1881, in an address to the state legislature.
“Why, then, in the absence of all control over the subject of African slavery, are you agitated in relation to it? With Pharisaical pretension it is sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate, and I suppose they are going through a sort of vicarious repentance for other men's sins... Who gave them a right to decide that it is a sin? By what standard do they measure it? Not the Constitution; the Constitution recognizes the property in many forms, and imposes obligations in connection with that recognition. Not the Bible; that justifies it. Not the good of society; for if they go where it exists, they find that society recognizes it as good...”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Boston (11 October 1858).
“Whether by the House or by the People, if an Abolitionist be chosen President of the United States, you will have presented to you the question of whether you will permit the government to pass into the hands of your avowed and implacable enemies... such a result would be a species of revolution by which the purposes of the Government would be destroyed and the observance of its mere forms entitled to no respect. In that event, in such manner as should be most expedient, I should deem it your duty to provide for your safely outside the Union of those who have shown the will, and would have acquired the power, to deprive you of your birthright and reduce you to worse than the Colonial dependence of your fathers.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) first seen 1858 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature (16 November 1858)
“I rise, Mr. President, for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course, my functions are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little more. The occasion does not invite me to go into argument, and my physical condition would not permit me to do so if it were otherwise; and yet it seems to become me to say something on the part of the state I here represent, on an occasion so solemn as this.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is known to senators who have served with me here that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of state sovereignty, the right of a state to secede from the Union. Therefore, if I had not believed there was justifiable cause; if I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the government, because of my allegiance to the state of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I do think that she has a justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them then that, if the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with advocacy of the right of a state to remain in the Union, and to disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often confounded, are indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the agent of states. It is only to be justified when the agent has violated his constitutional obligation, and a state, assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and appeals to the other states of the Union for a decision; but when the states themselves, and when the people of the states, have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights, then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my constituents toward yours. I am sure I feel no hostility to you, senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I cannot now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well; and such, I am sure, is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward those whom you represent. I therefore feel that I but express their desire when I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceful relations with you, though we must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the country; and if you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God, and in our own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.”
Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) said by 1889 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source