Jefferson Davis' Inaugurual Address

sunsite.utk.edu ^ | Feb. 18, 1861 | Jeff Davis

[Dawgsquat]

Jefferson Davis's Farewell to the U.S. Senate January 21, 1861

Jefferson Davis' First Message to the C.S. Congress

[Free the USA]

bttt

[shuckmaster]

The right man in the right place

[4CJ]

"Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established."

Bump.

[katherineisgreat]

this is the sort of thing that I will never learn in High School. They're all trying to convince how awful people like Davis were.. nothing of this sort.

[4CJ]

"The right solemnly proclaimed at the birth of the States, and which has been affirmed and reaffirmed in the bills of rights of States subsequently admitted into the Union of 1789, undeniably recognize in the people the power to resume the authority delegated for the purposes of government."

[stainlessbanner]

Thanks for the bump Shuck - 1st Inagural Address of the CSA over my morning coffee. I love it.

[stand watie]

YEP!

[Dawgsquat]

If you study all three speechs, it's clear that the reasons for secession were very much States Rights issues (that includes the hot button, emotional issue of slavery).

This war resulted in the death of the Tenth Ammendment of the Bill of Rights.

Amendment XThe powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

[Aric2000]

The civil war destroyed the 10th amendment alright, and it also destroyed the true intent of this constitutional republic as well. Lincoln as far as I have ascertained was a traitor to that document. Whereas the Confederacy had the right to do what they did.

Sad, sad times those were, saw the destruction of the south, and of the constitution as our founding fathers wrote it.

[Dawgsquat]

Yes, very sad times. The violations of the Tenth began several years before the war with the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. Both were mis-guided attempts by the Feds to solve a problem that, according to the Constitution, they had no jurisdiction over. The South could see the handwriting on the wall.

[Austin Willard Wright]

State's rights was not the central philosophical (other than slavery) justification for secession. As the address indicates, Davis relied on a compact theory to justify secession. States rights was too subversive, hence the CSA Constitution did not provide for the right of secession!

In fact, Davis and his cohorts had all fought the states rights of Northern states during the 1850s to enact personal liberty laws on the grounds that such laws wrongly trampled on Federal authority!

[Dawgsquat]

"State's rights was not the central philosophical (other than slavery) justification for secession. As the address indicates, Davis relied on a compact theory to justify secession. States rights was too subversive, hence the CSA Constitution did not provide for the right of secession!"

The violation of that "compact" between the Feds and the States was a States Rights issue. The Confederate Constitution did not forbid secession either, just like the U.S. Constitution did not.

"In fact, Davis and his cohorts had all fought the states rights of Northern states during the 1850s to enact personal liberty laws on the grounds that such laws wrongly trampled on Federal authority!"

"I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and when the doctrine of coercion was rife, and to be applied against her, because of the rescue of a fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced in my opinions because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that occasion as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is based. I then said that if Massachusetts -- following her purpose through a stated line of conduct -- chose to take the last step, which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but I will say to her, Godspeed, in memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other States."

[katana]

Frankly, this address is one of the most convoluted statements I've ever read. I do not deny that the southern states had and should have had the right to determine their own futures outside the Union, but if this represents the way Jefferson Davis wrote and spoke, then even by the flowery standards of 19th century oratory, he was an incredible windbag.

Furthermore, the central issue of the dispute between the northern and southern states was not preservation of slavery in the south. Only a minority of radicals in the north were actually pushing for complete abolition. Instead, the issue was whether slavery would be literally forced on the new territories and soon-to-be states in the west. The majority of people in those areas did not want slavery, and industry and labor in the north saw slavery as unfair and immoral competition. Equal accession of slave and free states was forced on the expanding United States in order maintain an even division of slave vs. free state representation in the Senate, and thereby maintain a level of power which their small population would otherwise not support, until Kansas and Nebraska upset that balance.

Secession, war, and eventual defeat stemmed from the desire of the slave holders to expand and spread their "peculiar institution". Appeals to the higher principles of "States' Rights" and "Freedom" were a thin cover for the fact that once the south could no longer get its way on the forcible extension of slavery, they decided to quit the Union altogether.

Whether they had the right to do so is a separate question. But I refuse attribute a high moral purpose to people who felt it was not only correct to hold humans as chattle but desirable to forcibly spread that practice to places where it was not wanted.

PS: The first shots of that war were fired by the south. Try shooting some artillery at Fort Bragg or Fort Campbell today and see how the Federal government reacts.

[aimhigh]

.. we have vainly endeavored to secure tranquillity, and to obtain respect for the rights to which we were entitled.

Obviousy, either the term "rights" or "we" had a limited context.

[WhiskeyPapa]

bump

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Funny, wasn't it John C. Calhoun (a southerner) who did much to make and break the Missouri Compromise?

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

Funny, wasn't it John C. Calhoun (a southerner) who did much to make and break the Missouri Compromise?

[Aric2000]

Oh, come on, Slavery was a minor issue if at all for the civil war. To the victors go the writing of history. Lincoln took on the call for the abolishment of slavery AFTER the war had already started to give him the moral high for his illegal and unconstitutional war.

Slavery WAS NOT a major issue, and this is provable by the fact that a number of slaveholding states stayed in the union, if, as you say the war was about slavery, then those states would have joined the confederacy.

And also, for your information, the emancipation proclamation freed NO SLAVES, NOT ONE!! Lincoln stated that those slaves held in the south, which he had ZERO authority over were free, but those slaves that were held in the north were to remain slaves. SO get off you slave high horse, it's a red herring. The civil war was about states rights, and that's ALL.... read it and tell me that isn't what it says.