This week those of us who still honor great Americans remembered President Jefferson Davis on the 128th anniversary of his passing.
With all that is going on in the public square as it relates to our realm of interest, perhaps you often wonder what a man like Jefferson Davis would say to us now if he could. It is far beyond me to put words into the mouth of the President of the Confederate States of America, but maybe the record of the words he spoke in life can give us some insight into what he might say if he could address today the descendants of those who served under his command.
The following words have been taken from President Davis' own speeches and writings, with the source-key located at the bottom.
Friends and Brethren:
Monuments may crumble, their inscriptions may be defaced by time, but the records, the little slips of paper which contain the memoranda of what is passed, will live forever. To preserve these records faithfully is the higher and holier duty still.
This is the duty that we owe to the dead - the dead who died for us, but whose memory can never die. This is the duty that we owe to posterity, an obligation to see that our children learn the worth of their parents.
They who now sleep in the graves cannot be benefited, it is true, by anything we do. Their case is gone to a higher tribunal than that of any earthly judgment, but their children and their children's children are to be benefited by preserving the record of all they did, and of all the motives for which they died.
It is not enough that we hand down what is settled - that our men were brave, that our men were noble and that our men exercised self-denial. We had no army, our troops were not professional soldiers. They were men who loved their wives and children and their peaceful occupations, but at the first call of their country they seized such weapons as they could gather and stood around their country like a wall of fire to defend the rights their fathers left them. Could there be cause more sacred than this? If there be anything that justifies human war, it is defense of duty, defense of country, defense of family, defense of home and defense of constitutional rights.
The highest quality of man is self-sacrifice. The man who gives his life for another, the man who surrenders all his earthly prospects, that is the man who most nearly follows that grand Examplar which is given to us as the model of weak humanity. That we had many of these, it is the purpose of this society, by collecting the evidence, to show to the world. Let it suffice to say here that I would have our children's children to know not only that our cause was just, but I would have them know that the men who sustained it were worthy of the cause for which they fought.
As for me, I only speak for myself. It is to me a most desirable object that the conduct of our men in the defense of that cause should be so presented to the world as to leave no stain upon it. They went through struggles which might have corrupted weaker men... You all know it would be needless for me to speak of it; how thoroughly unprepared we were when we engaged in the war - without money, without a name among the nations, without credit, without provisions, without arms, without ammunition, without even factories to make it; we went in relying solely upon brave hearts and brave arms, whose constant trust during the struggle was equaled, I contend, only by the morality.
As the virtue and conduct of our heroes are known to ourselves, we desire to perpetuate it for the benefit of posterity. Be it ours to keep their memory green forever.
Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so sacred, that had I known all that has come
to pass, had I known what was to be inflicted upon me, all that my
country was to suffer, all that our posterity was to endure, I would do
it over and over again. Never teach your children to desecrate the memory of the dead by admitting that their brothers were wrong in the effort to maintain the sovereignty, freedom and independence which was their inalienable birthright.
The other side has written and is writing their history of the cause. The world keeps pace with fiction and so the liars rule, but truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.
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* ADDRESS TO THOSE ATTENDING THE EVENT FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY; NEW ORLEANS, LA; 25 APRIL 1882
** ADDRESS TO A JOINT SESSION OF THE MISSISSIPPI STATE LEGISLATURE; JACKSON, MS; 10 MARCH 1884
*** PRIVATE LETTER; CIRCA-1881
**** PRIVATE LETTER TO HIS WIFE, VARINA; 28 FEBRUARY 1874
***** ADDRESS AT THE NATHANIEL GREENE MONUMENT; SAVANNAH, GA; 6 MAY 1886
