Something a little different today, class...rather than me sitting here typing out historically accurate facts and then backing them up with sources, I thought it would be fun to let the people who were actually there and involved in making history speak for themselves. So I present to you a collection of quotes, all authenticated, all historically accurate and true, from both sides of the historical events leading up to and including the War for Southern Independence. And as the title says, you sure won't find these quotes in any of the history books currently being used in our public school system. After reading them, I'm sure you'll see why!
Ready? Okay, then, heeeeeeeeeere we go!
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suites them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much territory as they inhabit." Abraham Lincoln, 12 January 1848, in a speech in Congress
"So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished." General Robert E. Lee, CSA
"There are few, I believe, in this enlightened era who would not agree with me that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil." General Robert E. Lee, CSA
"I wish to see the shackles struck from every slave." Lt. General Thomas K. "Stonewall" Jackson, CSA
"Only a despotic and imperial government can coerce seceding States." William Seward, US Secretary of State under Abraham Lincoln, to Charles Francis Adams, minister to England, 10 April 1861
"In saving the union, I have destroyed the Republic." Abraham Lincoln
"The sole object of this war is to restore the Union. Should I become convinced it has any other object, or that the Government designs its soldiers to execute the wishes of the Abolitionists, I pledge you my honor as a man and a soldier I would resign my commission and carry my sword to the other side." General Ulysses S. Grant, USA, in a letter to the Chicago Tribune, 1862
"I am NOT in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office...I am NOT in favor of Negro citizenship." Abraham Lincoln
"Good help is so hard to come by these days." General Ulysses S. Grant, USA, explaining why he didn't free his slaves until the passage of the 13th Amendment, AFTER the war
"Help me to dodge the nigger - we want nothing to do with him. I am fighting to preserve the integrity of the Union and the power of the Government - on no other issue. To gain that end we cannot afford to mix up the negro question - it must be incidental and subsidiary. The President is perfectly honest and is really sound on the nigger question." General George B. McClellan, USA
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that." Abraham Lincoln, 22 August 1862, in a letter to Horace Greely, editor of the New York Tribune
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races...I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." Abraham Lincoln
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Abraham Lincoln, 14 March 1861, First Inaugural Speech
"I am a little uneasy about the abolishment of slavery in this District [of Columbia].." Abraham Lincoln, 24 March 1862, in a letter to Horace Greely, New York Tribune editor
"Amend the Constitution to say it should never be altered to interfere with slavery." Abraham Lincoln, 24 December 1860, presenting his stand on slavery to the Senate
And I saved what I think is the best for last:
"Every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late...It means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy; that our youth will be trained by Northern schoolteachers; will learn from Northern schoolbooks their version of the war; will be impressed by the influences of history and education to regard our gallant dead as traitors, and our maimed veterans as fit object for derision...It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties." Maj. General Patrick R. Cleburne, CSA, January 1864, writing on what would happen if the Confederacy lost the war
And the truth shall set you free...
Class dismissed!
IHC
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