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“There is a terrible war coming, and these young men who have never seen war cannot wait for it to happen, but I tell you, I wish that I owned every slave in the South, for I would free them all to avoid this war.” - Robert E. Lee

There's some controversy over whether this is a real quote from Lee. More here.

"So far," said Lee, "from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained."

This comes from John Leyburn's 1885 reminiscences of an 1869 conversation. D.S. Freeman accepts it as legitimate.

If Lee said it, it was well after the war when he did. I doubt that during the fighting he thought that all that Virginia was suffering was a fit price for emancipation.

“We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for independence.” - Jefferson Davis

Give more of the quotation from Davis:

"I desire Peace as much as you do; I deplore bloodshed as much as you do; but I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this War is on my hands. I can look up to my God and say this. I tried all in my power to avert this War. I saw it coming, and for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it; but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves; and so the War came: and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize his musket and fight our battle, 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."

Now if we dispute that Davis actually "deplored bloodshed," "tried all in my power to avert this War" and, "worked night and day to prevent" the war, the end of the paragraph may also be called into question.

The man had a limitlesss ability to deceive himself about his own motivations. That's why some of us think so little of Old Jeff.

It's hard to have much respect for Davis and his opinions when he says "I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this War is on my hands."

“The man had a limitlesss ability to deceive himself about his own motivations. That’s why some of us think so little of Old Jeff.

It’s hard to have much respect for Davis and his opinions when he says “I feel that not one drop of the blood shed in this War is on my hands.””

I honestly don’t have an opinion about Davis one way or the other. He very well might have been speaking out of both sides of his mouth on various issues just like Lincoln was. Politicians have a tendency to do that. They haven’t changed too much since the mid-1800s.

From the many things I’ve read on the Civil War, I simply believe it was over state’s rights and not slavery. Even if I discount Davis, et al, and their motives, I can look at Lincoln’s own words and see that slavery was not a major concern of his going into the war and only became a concern when he felt the need to garner public support late in the war from the abolitionists.