Southrens were that cheap?
Yankees were that money grubbing.
“the moment this House undertakes to legislate upon this subject [slavery], it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood.”
James H. Hammond, Congressman from South Carolina, during the Congressional Gag Rule controversy in the 1830’s
“First then, it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere — in fact that is the only question which in the least affects the results of the elections.”
Henry L. Benning, Georgia politician and future Confederate general, 1849
“Democratic liberty exists solely because we have slaves . . . freedom is not possible without slavery.”
Richmond Enquirer, 1856
“I want a foothold in Central America... because I want to plant slavery there.... I want Cuba,... Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason - for the planting or spreading of slavery.”
Albert Gallatin Brown, U.S. Senator from Mississippi, 1858
“The South is invaded. It is time for all patriots to be united, to be under military organization, to be advancing to the conflict determined to live or die in defence of the God given right to own the African”
Richard Thompson Archer, Mississippi planter, 1859
“If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -— it is a question of political and social existence.”
Alfred P. Aldrich, South Carolina legislator from Barnwell, prior to the 1860 election
“We regard every man in our midst an enemy to the institutions of the South, who does not boldly declare that he believes African slavery to be a social, moral, and political blessing.”
Atlanta Confederacy, 1860
“Gentlemen of the Convention: We meet together under no ordinary circumstances.The rapid spread of Northern fanaticism has endangered our liberties and institutions, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, a wily abolitionist, to the Presidency of the United States, destroys all hope for the future.”
John C. Pelot, delegate from Alachua County to the Florida secession convention, 1861
“The question of Slavery is the rock upon which the Old Government split: it is the cause of secession.”
G. T. Yelverton, of Coffee County, Alabama, speaking to the Alabama Secession Convention, 1861
“African slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism.”
“Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it.”
Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, 1860
“The area of slavery must be extended correlative with its antagonism, or it will be put speedily in the ‘course of ultimate extinction.’....The extension of slavery is the vital point of the whole controversy between the North and the South...Amendments to the federal constitution are urged by some as a panacea for all the ills that beset us. That instrument is amply sufficient as it now stands, for the protection of Southern rights, if it was only enforced. The South wants practical evidence of good faith from the North, not mere paper agreements and compromises. They believe slavery a sin, we do not, and there lies the trouble.”
Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas, 1861
“Sir, the great question which is now uprooting this Government to its foundation-—the great question which underlies all our deliberations here, is the question of African slavery…”
Thomas F. Goode, Mecklenburg County, Virginia, 1861
“The triumphs of Christianity rest this very hour upon slavery; and slavery depends on the triumphs of the South . . . This war is the servant of slavery.”
Methodist Rev. John T. Wightman, South Carolina, 1861
They have declared, by the election of Lincoln, “There shall be no more slave territory–no more slave States.” To this the Cotton States have responded by acts of secession and a Southern Confederacy; which is but a solemn declaration of these States, that they will not submit to the Northern idea of restricting slavery to its present limits, and confining it to the slave States.”
S. C. Posey, Lauderdale County, Alabama, speaking to the Alabama Secession Convention, 1861
“The Confederate States may acquire new territory . . . In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government.”
Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 3, CSA Constitution, 1861
“The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves.”
Article 2, Sec. VII, Paragraph 3, Georgia Constitution, 1861
“I say, then, that viewed from that standpoint, there is but one single subject of complaint which Virginia has to make against the government under which we live; a complaint made by the whole South, and that is on the subject of African slavery….”
John B. Baldwin, Augusta County delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention, 1861
“We must never despair, for death is preferable to a life spent under the gaulling [sic] yoke of abolition rule.”
Pvt. Jonathan Doyle, 4th La., 1863
This country without slave labor would be completely worthless. We can only live & exist by that species of labor; and hence I am willing to fight for the last.”
William Nugent, CSA soldier, 1863
“If slavery is to be abolished then I take no more interest in our fight.
CSA Brigadier General Clement Stevens, 1864