The History of the Civil War in America: Comprising a Full and Impartial Account of the Origin and Progress of the Rebellion, of the Various Naval and Military Engagements, of the Heroic Deeds Performed by Armies and Individuals, and of Touching Scenes in the Field, the Camp, the Hospital, and the Cabin, Volume 1

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Page 34 - Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition.
Page 86 - In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it.
Page 34 - The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.
Page 65 - But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it.
Page 64 - I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of the separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time.
Page 69 - We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained; "That the Ordinance adopted by us in Convention, on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America...
Page 56 - But, not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other — though last, not least: the new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists among us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and the present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which...
Page 39 - I am impliedly if not expressly pledged to a belief in the right and duty of Congress to prohibit slavery in all the United States Territories. Q. 7. 'I desire him to answer whether he is opposed to the acquisition of any new territory unless slavery is first prohibited therein.
Page 86 - The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government...
Page 93 - Rhett, who had been for many years in the public service, declared that "the secession of South Carolina was not the event of a day. It is not," said he, "any thing produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years.

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