yin 'jaLi +v ^ r^V*'*. \ • > JEFFERSON DAVIS Address by DANIEL ALBRIGHT LONG Recommended by the State Board of Education of North Carolina FOR Use in the Schools of the State [Price 35 cents] ??, ,< Jt, .V • -»■'?. ‘ . <-’•-■>• :ASt * ‘ .“’' wm0S": t-‘$-yy>?*''‘- i v^'! V-' • -'. !«y,;-v-; i;? i’■- .'F ■4 -J< ,*if i g.-:^B»».:';--r- Hitirarp of tbe Unibcrsitp of ^ortf) Carolina Cntiohjcli ftp ®})e lltalecti'c anb Pfttlantfttoptc Societies: )v%4- , JEFFERSON DAVIS JEFFERSON DAVIS An Address Delivered at Concordy North Carolina June 3,1921 BY Daniel Albright Long 1b RALEIGH, N. C. Edwabds & Broughton Printing Company 1923 Copyright, 1921 BY Dakiel Albright Long ^uperintanbcnt of ^oftltc (Snslntcixon of ^ortI| (Uarolma Makch 9, 1923. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Eranklinton, IN’. C. My dear Dr. Long : The State Board of Education yesterday unanimously recom¬ mended your book ^^The Place of Jefferson Davis in History,” to be placed on the supplementary list for use in the schools of the State. I take pleasure in sending you this action of the Board. I am keeping one copy of the manuscript and returning the other to you. Very sincerely yours. State Superintendent of Public Instruction. STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION Hon. Cameron Morrison . Governor Hon. W. B. Cooper. Lieutenant-Governor Hon. W. N. Everett . Secretary of State Hon. Baxter Durham . State Auditor Hon. B. R. Lacy . State Treasurer Hon. James S. Manning. Attorney-General Hon. E. C. Brooks . State Supt. of Public Instruction Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill https://archive.org/details/jeffersondavisad03long JEFFERSON DAVIS Address delivered by Daniel Albright Long at Concord, North Carolina, June 3, 1921, Comrades of the War between the States 1861-65: At your request I am today to speak of the place of Jefferson Davis in history. One hundred and thirteen years ago Jefferson Davis, the youngest of ten children, was born in a log house in Christian County, now known as Todd County, Kentucky. Before the Revolutionary War three Davis brothers came from Wales to Philadelphia. Evan Davis married a widow in Georgia, Mrs. Emory, with two sons. By this marriage there was an only child, named 'Samuel. The Revolutionary War was in progress when Samuel reached the age of fifteen, and his mother often sent him from Georgia to South Carolina to take food and clothing to his half-brothers, serving in the American Army. This man soon raised a company of infan¬ try and was chosen captain. He led his company to Savannah and gained honors in rendering aid to the Americans. When the war ended he returned to his Georgia home and found his mother had died, the home was a wreck, all buildings burned fences and crops destroyed. He then moved near Augusta, Ga., and began life as a farmer. While a soldier in South Carolina he stopped one day on a march to ask for food at the home of a beautiful Scotch-Irish girl, named Jane Cook. He never forgot the charms of that young hostess. As soon as Samuel had a home of his own he needed a cook, so he returned to South Carolina and captured Jane Cook. Home life was happy. Many children came into the home nest. They moved west and settled in Kentucky, where Jefferson Davis was born June 3, 1808. From Ken¬ tucky the family moved to Bayou Teche, Louisiana, but health was not good there so they moved to Woodville, Mississippi. Here at that time bear, deer.and fish were abundant and the Davis hoys had fine sport, working on the farm, hunting, fish¬ ing and going to the nearby school, in a log cabin. This was ^Meff’s^’ first school, going at the age of five, with his sister Polly. The War of 1812 was soon on, and three of the brothers joined Andrew Jackson’s army. ^Meff” was sent away to school in Kentucky, and was the youngest boy in that school. In two years he was placed at Jefferson Academy, near home. At the age of 12 he entered Transylvania College, Kentucky. Here he was noted for his respect for his professors, and was, according to their testimony, ‘The most polite boy in college.” He was “considered the brightest and most intelligent of all the boys as well as the bravest and handsomest.” His father died while he was at college. He grieved greatly over his death. His next move was to the United States Military Academy at West Point. He was only twenty years of age when he graduated there. It was at West Point he studied “Rawle’s View of the Con¬ stitution,” which taught him that if a State seceded (showing that it was an acknowledged fact by the Constitution that a State had the right to secede) the duty of a soldier reverted to his State. Hence, Davis, Pobert E. Lee, Thomas J. Jackson, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston and others, act¬ ing upon this instruction, cast their lot with their States in 1861. When the star of the Southern Confederacy paled to a close and the frail body of President Davis was loaded with chains and cast into a dungeon, and when those who camped outside of the Constitution to save the Union demanded his trial and execution. Chief Justice Chase said that a trial of Davis would condemn the Korth, and so no trial was ever held. He was released on bail, but his political disabilities were never removed', although he lived to be eighty-one years, six months and three days old, and died December 6, 1889. The Black Hawk War came soon after Davis left West Point. Among the brave young men who volunteered was Captain Abraham Lincoln, of Springfield, Illinois, and he was ^^mustered into service by Lieutenant Jefferson Davis, of tbe United States Army/’ This is tbe only record tbat these men ever met or were brought in personal contact with each other. In a few years came the War with Mexico. Davis became a hero many times. At Monterey he distinguished himself; at Buena Yista he was wounded; he scaled' the walls of the City of Mexico* This war over, he was elected United States Sen¬ ator, then became Secretary of War in President Pierce’s cabi¬ net. When Buchanan was made president Mississippi sent him back to the United States Senate. The first wife of Davis was Sarah Knox Taylor, daughter of General Taylor. His bride, with whom he had eloped, lived three months. About eight years after he married Miss Yarina Banks Howell, the daughter of William Burr Howell, and a descendent of Lieutenant Howell, of the War of 1812, and of General Howell of Revolutionary War fame. The life of Davis touches many Southern States. His mother was from 'South Carolina, his father from Georgia, he was born in Kentucky, lived in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Yirginia, fought to free Texas. Men who had no special love for the South were forced to acknowledge the nobility of his character. The Hew York World said of him after his death: ^Mefferson Davis was a man of commanding 'ability, spotless integrity, controlling conscience and a temper so resolute that at times it approached obstinacy. He was proud, sensitive and honorable in all his dealings and in every relation of life.” Charles Francis Adams, a Union soldier and grandson of John Quincy Adams, said of Davis: ^^Ko fatal mistakes either of administration or strategy were made which can be fairly laid to his account. He did the best possible with the means he had at his command. Merely the opposing forces were too many and too strong for him. Of his austerity, earnestness and fidelity there can be no more question than can be entertained of his capacity.” But up jumps the brassy, flashy, skyrocket hater of the South and says: was impossible for Davis to be a patriot, and for the Confederate soldier to be fighting for liberty, when Slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy.” To this I reply: The Soutliern States did not go to war for the perpet¬ uation of slavery, but for the preservation of the principle of self-^v/*'ernnient. Lincoln wrote Greeley in 1862: ^^My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery/’ Davis wrote, February, 1861: ^Un any case our slave prop¬ erty will be eventually lost.” Uot one Confederate soldier in ten ever owned a slave. Uot one of them would restore slavery if he could by snapping a finger, much less by firing a gun. General Lee and wife, long before the war, emancipated the slaves they inherited. General Grant and wife held on to those they inherited until they were freed by the Thirteenth Amend¬ ment. General Joseph E. Johnston, A. P. Hill and Fitzhugh Lee never o^vvned a slave. But, say the haters, the Constitution of the Confederate States recognized slavery. To this I reply it did, but it pro¬ hibited the slave trade. The Constitution of the United States, as originally adopted by the thirteen colonies, contained three sections which recognized slavery and through the influence of Hew York and Hew England and two' or three Southern States continued the slave trade for twenty years. Were all the brave soldiers of the E-evolution ary War not seceders and fighting for liberty, although slavery existed in every one of the thirteen colonies? If George Washington, a slave holder, was a champion of liberty, why could not a soldier of the Confederacy be fighting for liberty, too? Over 100,000 soldiers of the Union Army O’vvned slaves. The time has come when men and women ought to speak and write truly, kindly and freely about our country and its history. The last soldier in the War between the States, Horth and South, will soon answer the last roll-call. All are one hundred per cent Americans. Their sons and grandsons responded alike when McKinley called and when Wilson called, and thousands of them sealed their devotion to their country with their heart’s best blood. Let us garland the graves of all the brave soldiers alike. You remember there have been a iiumbnr of secessions in the United States, and many threatened ones. 1. Thirteen colonies seceded from England and formed a ^^Perpetual Union/’under the Articles of Confederation, in 1776. 2. The Thirteen States seceded from the Perpetual Union and formed a Republic of Sovereign States, in 1787. 3. Texas seceded from Mexico and became a Republic, in 1836. 4. The Abolitionists, led by William Lloyd Garrison, seceded from the Constitution at Framingham, Mass., and publicly burned it, calling it a ^deague with hell and a covenant with death,” the assembled multitude loudly applauding. 5. Eleven States seceded from the Union in 1861 and formed a Southern Confederacy. 6. The Uorth seceded from the Constitution in 1861, when she attempted to coerce the eleven seceding States back into the Union. (Miss M. L. Rutherford.) 7. Under President McKinley, 1898, the United States forced Cuba to secede from Spain- 8. Under President Roosevelt, 1905, the United States forced Panama to secede from Colombia. During the earlier days of the Union the right to secede was generally recognized. This right was asserted more than once by States of the Korth, who later refused to allow the South to assert the same claim. Massachusetts was a believer in the right to secede when John Quincy Adams declared on the floor of Congress, at the time of the admission of Texas as a State, that New England ought to secede, while the Hartford Con¬ vention threatened similar steps when our country was engaged in the War of 1812. Even at the time when the Forth declared the South had no right to secede, although having itself asserted that right previously, we see West Virginia encouraged and assisted in secession from the mother State. Who was responsible for negro slavery in the South ? Bancroft says: ^^The sovereigns of England and Spain were the greatest slave merchants in the world.” DuBois, the negro historian, sajs: ^^The American slave trade camo to be carried on principally by United States capital, in United States ships, officered by United States citizens and under the United States flag.’’ 'New England and New York furnished more slave ships than all the other States. Henry Watterson in the Louis¬ ville Courier Journal says: ^^Slavery existed in the beginning in both the Yorth and the 'South. But the Horth, finding slave labor unsuited to its needs and, therefore, unprofitable, sold its slaves to the South, not forgetting to pocket the money it got for them, having indeed at great profit brought them over from Africa in its shipsA July 16, 1859, Stephen A. Douglas, speaking at Bloomington, Illinois, said: ^^There is but one possible way in which slavery can be abolished, and that is by leaving a State perfectly free to form and regulate its institutions in its own way. That was the principle upon which this Republic was founded. Under its operations slavery disappeared from six of the twelve orig¬ inal slave-holding States; and this gradual system of emancipa¬ tion went on quietly, peacefully and steadily so long as we in the free States minded our own business and left our neighbors alone.” Rev. J. W. Wellons, D.D., now of Elon College, H. C., is in his 96th year, born and reared in Virginia, not far from the place where Nat Turner, a negro preacher, in August, 1831, led the ^^Southampton Insurrection.” He told me only a short time ago how the negroes attacked the whites at night and before the assault could be suppressed fifty-seven whites, prin¬ cipally women and children, had been killed in the most bar¬ barous manner. Hat Turner was an educated slave. One of his lieutenants was a free negro. Instigators from without were responsible for the insurrection. In the work of W. E. Channing, D.D., American Unitarian Society, page 735, he says: ^^The adoption of the common sys¬ tem of agitation by the Abolitionists has not been justified . . . It has stirred up bitter passions and fierce fanaticism.” Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln-Douglas Debates, page 74) at Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854, said: ^^When Southern peo¬ ple tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way I can understand and appreciate the say¬ ing. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know how to do myself. It all earthly powers were given me I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. What next? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings would not admit of that; and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not.” The Abolitionists kept sending inflammatory papers and pam¬ phlets, gratuitously, into the South, with amalgamation pictures (A South Side View of Slavery, Adams, page 108) in order, if possible, to stir up more Hat Turner insurrections. In the Memoirs of Margaret Mercer, by Morris, page 126, you may read what this good woman of Maryland said about these things. She manumitted her own slaves, hut abhorred the idea of inciting the slaves to follow the example of Hat Turner. She wrote Gerrit Smith: ^‘For while the well disposed and faithful servants of kind masters will suffer and die with the whites in a general insurrection, the lawless and vicious will have in their power the massacre of men, women and children in their sleep. This is my apology for feeling and expressing the deepest indignation against the man who dares to throw the firebrand into the powder magazine while all are asleep and stands himself at a distance to see the mangled victims of his barbarous fury.” Prof. John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, in his His¬ tory of the Civil V^ar and the Constitution, page 329, says. 'Mohn Brown and his hand had murdered five men and wounded some eight or ten more in their criminal movements at Harper s Ferry. Add to this the consideration that Brown certainly intended the wholesale massacre of the whites by the blacks. When this crime was punished what took place in the Horth? Prof. Burgess says, page 329: 'Ht was certainly natural that the tolling of the church bells, the holding of prayer-meetings for the soul of John Brown, the draping of houses, the half- masting of flags, etc., in many parts of the Horth should appear to the people of the South to be evidences of a wickedness which knew no bounds and which was bent upon the destruction of the South by any means necessary to accomplish the result. Espe¬ cially did terror and bitterness take possession of the hearts of the women of the South who saw in slave insurrection not only destruction and death, hut that which to feminine virtue is a thousand times worse than the most terrible death.^’ Did we have a legal and moral right to secede? In the His¬ tory of the United States by Rhodes (1861) Yol. Ill, page 214, he says: ^Hhere were at this time in the border states of Virginia, Maryland and Kentucky and Missouri uncondi¬ tional secessionists and unconditional Union men; hut the great body of the people, although believing that the wrongs of the South were grievous and cried for redress, deemed secession inexpedient. All denied either the right or feasibility of coercion.’’ After the death of John C. Calhoun Jefferson Davis was the ablest representative from the South in the United States Senate. In his farewell address to the Senate he said: ^USTow, sirs, we are confusing language very much. Men speak of revolution and when they say revolution they mean blood. Our fathers meant nothing of the sort. When they spoke of revolu¬ tion they meant an inalienable right. When they declared as an inalienable right the power of the people to abrogate and modify their form of government whenever it did not answer the ends for which it was established they did not mean that they were going to sustain that by brute force. Are we, in the age of civilization and political progress, are we to roll hack the whole current of human thought and again to return to the mere brute force which prevails between beasts of prey as the only method of settling questions between men ? Is it to be supposed that the men who fought the battles of the Revolution for community independence terminated their great efforts by transmitting to posterity a condition in which they could only gain those rights by force? If so, the blood of the Revolution was shed in vain; no great principles were established; for force was the law of nature before the battles of the Revo¬ lution were fought.” (Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Yol. I, page 617.) John Quincy Adams, speaking before the Hew York His¬ torical Society in 1838 on the fiftieth anniversary of Wash- ington’s inauguration as President of tlie United States, said: To the people alone there is reserved as well the dissolving as the constituent power and that power can be exercised by them only under the tie of conscience binding them to the retributive justice of heaven.’’ With these qualifications we may admit the right as vested in the people of every State of the Union with reference to the general government, which was exercised by the people of the United Colonies with reference to the supreme head of the British Empire of which they formed a part and under these limitations the people of each State of the Union have a right to secede from the Confederated Union itself.” (Buchanan’s Administration, page 89.) Abraham Lincoln, January 12, 1848, in Congress, said: ^^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 suits them better. This is a most valuable and sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Uor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such that can may revolu¬ tionize and make their own way any or so much of the territory as they inhabit.” (Abraham Lincoln, Speeches and Letters, E". & H., Yol. L, page 105.) What a hard time the poor brother in black has had! Let me leave out entirely anything the people of the South said about him and give you a few specimens of what the great leaders of the I^orth said about him. Stephen A. Douglas, at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858, said: “For one I am opposed to negro citizenship in any and every form. I believe this government was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and I am in favor of confining citizenship to white men, men of European birth and descent, instead of conferring it upon Indians, negroes and other inferior races.” (The Hegro Problem, Abraham Lin¬ coln’s Solution, Pickett, page 245.) General William T. Sherman, writing in July, 1860, said: Congresses on earth can’t make the negro anything else tlian what lie is; lie must he subject to the white man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such races cannot live in harmony, save as master and slave. Mexico shows the result of general equality and amalgamation, and the Indians give a fair illustration of the fate of negroes if they are released from the control of the whites.” (General Sherman’s Letters Home, Scribner’s Magazine, April, 1909, page 400.) William H. Seward, speaking at Detroit, Michigan, Septem- her 4, 1860, said: ^^The great fact is now fully realized that the African race here is a foreign and feeble element, like the Indians, incapable of assimilation, and that it is a pitiful ex¬ otic, unwisely and unnecessarily transplanted into our fields, and which is unprofitable to cultivate at the cost of the desola¬ tion of the native vineyard.” (The Hegro Problem, Abraham Lincoln’s Solution, Pickett, page 449.) Abraham Lincoln, in his speech at Quincy, Illinois, October 15, 1858, in the Lincoln-Douglas debate, said: have no pur¬ pose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, would probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a dif¬ ference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.” (Abraham Lincoln, Speeches, Letters and State Papers, H. & H., Yol. I., page 457.) In the same debate at Charleston, Illinois, 'September 18, 1858, he said: will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to inter¬ marry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.” (Ibid., I)age 457.) 1. I challenge anyone to disprove these quotations, and I challenge anyone to show where Jefferson Davis ever said or wrote anything as unkind to, or about, the colored race. Where was the poor brother in black to go? In 1862 Illinois had a constitutional convention. Article XVIII provided. Section I: ^^Xo negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this State after the adoption of the Constitution.” The vote was taken and adopted by a majority of 100,590, barely one month before President Lincoln’s first Proclamation of Eman¬ cipation. This you will find recorded in Illinois Convention Journal, 1862, page 1098. If his own State feared and a few thousand negroes what could President Lincoln think of the Southern States with millions of them? But enough of this. Here the white and colored races are living in peace. The attrition of the tide of time is gradually wearing off the asperities of other days. All hearts are beat¬ ing in unison to the music of the Union and the Constitution. The Constitution has been amended many times since 1865. The race question is gradually being solved. The South is spending millions to educate the brother in black. If the demagogues will let the States alone, with their reserved sover¬ eign rights, there will never be any possibility of going out¬ side the Constitution to save the Union, or of going outside the Union to save the Constitution. Horace Greeley, in the Xew York Tribune, February 23, 1861, wrote: ^^We have repeatedly said, and we once more insist, that the great principle embodied by Jefferson, that govern¬ ments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, is sound and just j and that if the Slave States, the cotton States, or the Gulf States only choose to form an independent nation they have the moral right to do so.” On the 10th of April, 1861, only five days previous to the call for 75,000 soldiers, Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, in an official communication to the American Minister to Great Britain, wrote: ^Tor these reasons he (the President) would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (the Seces¬ sionists), namely, that the Federal Government could not reduce the seceding States to obediency by conquest, even though he were disposed to question that proposition. But, in fact, -ifl5|i- the President willingly accepts it as true. Only an imperial or despotic government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected and insurrectionary members of the State. This Federal Pe- puhlican system of ours of all forms of government is the very one which is most unfitted^for such labor.’’ (Diplomatic Cor¬ respondence, 1861, page 58.) When some mighty Thucydides shall arise to write the true history of the War of 1861-65, he may ask why the ISTorth decided to regard the Constitution of the United States as a scrap of paper and change from a ^Tederal Republic” to ^^an imperial or despotic government” so it ^^could subjugate thoroughly the South,” and explain why the Uorth had any better right to secede from the Constitution than the South had to secede from the Union. The Legality: There was, and is, a dispute whether the States created' the Federal Grovernment and delegated to it the powers it has, or whether it is the creature of the whole people of the United States, acting as a great sovereign political unit. Read the Constitution of the United States, Article Y., and ask yourself if the creature is greater than the creator. In 1816, when Marshall of Virginia and Story of Massa¬ chusetts were members of the Supreme Court of the United States the entire bench concurring, said: ^^The Government, then, of the'United States can claim no powers which are not granted to it by the Constitution and th^ powers actually granted must be such as are expressly given, or given by necessary implication.” (1. Wlieaton, U. S. Reports, 326.) In 1906, Justice Brewer, speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States, said: ^^As heretofore stated the constant declaration of this Court from the beginning is that this gov¬ ernment is one of enumerated powers.” It is so today. If this should ever cease to be so this beauti¬ ful government would quickly become one of the mournful dreams of the past. Article X, United States Constitution, says: ^^The 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.” Some of the ratifying conventions sought to make assurances doubly sure. Virginia, for instance, interpreting the Constitu- tion as part of lier ratification, said: ^^Tfie powers granted under tlie Constitution may be reseiwed by the people when¬ soever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.” ISTew York, followed by Rhode Island, as part of the res gestae, with reference to the powers delegated to the Federal Government said “the powers of government may be reserved by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness.” Comrades, never forget that you fought for the rights for which your fathers fought under Washington, and that it is not a lost cause. Do not forget that the sovereignty of the United States is delegated; that of each State is inherent. Shortly before leavdng the bench in 1915 Justice Hughes of Hew York prepared the opinion in Kennedy, vs. Becker (241 U. S., 563). As thus prepared this opinion was subsequently adopted and delivered by the late Chief Justice White as the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court, Concerning the power of the State of Kew York to control lands which were the subject of a treaty between Robert Morris and the Seneca Kation of Indians in 1797, the court says: “But the existence of the sovereignty of the State was well understood and this conception involved all that was necessarily implied in that sovereignty, whether fully appreciated or not.” According to Woolsey, Vattel and Proudhon, where any peo¬ ple set up a government and force the government from which they withdraw to sign a cartel for the exchange of prisoners, they ceased to be rebels and become belligerents. When any man calls you a rebel you may know that he is either an igno¬ ramus, or too much prejudiced to appreciate an argument or see the truth. Thousands of articles have been written and many eloquent and impassioned orations have been made since we found our¬ selves among the stranded fragments and floating timbers of 1861-65. The hero-worshippers deify their favorites, damn some with faint praise and send the remainder to everlasting uneasiness; but the great assize of the unprejudiced world’s thought and conscience tries again and again the merits of controversies and brings victor and vanquished to the har of its increasingly fair and discriminating judgment. The Korth and South were morally wrong for buying and selling human beings. The South was right in fighting for her rights under the Constitution. Tremendous problems confront us now. Men and women, ISTorth, South, East and 'West, should bind it upon their fingers, write it upon their door-posts and impress it upon their chil¬ dren that the highest liberty is the reign of law. We should do all we can to Americanize and Christianize the incoming tide from other lands. The Confederate soldier has always been the best friend the negro had. We will continue to cultivate friendly relations. March 10, 1884, Jefferson Davis made a speech to the Mis¬ sissippi Legislature. I give a quotation: “Our people have accepted that decree; it therefore behooves them as they may, to promote the general welfare of the Union, to show to the world that hereafter as heretofore the patriotism of our people is not measured by lines of latitude and longitude, but is as broad as the obligations they have assumed and embraces the whole of our ocean-hound domain. Let them leave to their children’s children the good example of never swerving from the path of duty and preferring to return good for evil rather than to cherish the unmanly feeling of revenge.” These noble words gushed forth from as brave a man as ever girded on a sword or charged through the white smoke of battle. Davis embodied and represented with constant and patient heroism, to the day of his death, the right of self- government which Washington won, for which Lee fought and for which Albert Sidney Johnston and Stonewall Jackson died. Citizen, soldier, statesman. President, thou hast passed into history. When these thick fogs of time, looking through which prejudiced eyes still view thee, shall vanish before the just and righteous verdict of history thy name and the cause for which thy comrades fought and’ died will shine out as one of the greatest bulwarks against the whirlwinds of anarchy and prove to be the greatest power to save this glorious republic, which now looms up on the horizon, to the admiration of all the earth, from the polar frosts of a centralized, Prussianized military despotism. The Confederate armies are disbanded and we are in our Father’s house to remain; but the cause for which Davis stood was never more alive than now. ISTearly every decision of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1865 to 1921 has sustained the contentions of the South. Every great battle since has been for freedom and' self-government. President Wilson often told the people why we went into the World War. Only a few days ago President Harding at Brooklyn^ Hew York, said: ^‘^These heroes were sacrificed in the supreme conflict of all human history. ' They saw democracy challenged and defended it. They saw civilization threatened and rescued it. They saw America affronted and resented it. They saw our national rights imperilled and stamped these rights with a new sanctity and a new security. They gave all that men and women can give. We shall give our most and best if we make certain that they did not die in vain.” May 28, 1921, at a meeting of Yale University Alumni at Washington, D. C., among the distinguished speakers was Pres¬ ident Arthur T. Hadley, who said: ^Tt is essential that college students should understand the thoughts and feelings of their fellow citizens as a body; not those of their own group or class hut those of the many different groups that make up the Hation. It is true,” said Dr. Hadley, ^That the United States has not developed such fierce international antagonisms as Germany did, hut we have within our borders possibilities of conflict which are just as fundamental and which may prove just as serious. We have class antagonisms, whose most helpless feature is that they are based oni class misunderstandings. City and country are often as far apart in feeling as though they represented separate nations. Organized capital and organized labor pursue their several ends without any real knowledge on the part of the leaders of either group of what the rank and file of the other are thinking.” Southern Sympathy Broad. Declaring Southerners show a sympathy which is not only broad but instinctive, the speaker asserted that ^^The country looks to the South to see that it does not get Prussianized.” And what is Prussianism? It is the creature of class victory in a class conflict. And what does it mean? The supremacy of the few over the many; autocratic dictation and the negation of local self-government - 419 ]| 5 - and individual liberty. . Our percentage of native-born white people is higher than that of the hTorth and the West. Dr. Had¬ ley knows that true and loyal Americanism can be looked for with greater certainty in a section where American blood is thickest. In a land that gave birth to Washington, Jefferson^ Patrick Henry, Madison, Marshall, Davis, Lincoln, Lee, Jack- son, Albert Sidney Johnston and Joseph E. Johnston, Monroe, Graham, Vance, Ben Hill and Chief Justice White will always be a land where Prussianism will be at a minimum. It took England over two hundred years to quit spitting on the name and grave of Oliver Cromwell. As I went through London I saw a magnificent statue of him near the place where his disinterred skull was once posted to be hissed at by the passing throng. The day is coming, yea, now is, when the N'orth with her tens of thousands of un-Americanized popula¬ tion, will be calling on the South to save our civil and religid^s institutions from Prussianism and Bolshevism. What is the place of Davis in history ? Ben Hill said: ^^He was the most honest, the truest, gentlest, bravest, tenderest, manliest man I ever saw.’’ Prescott, the historian, who knew the history of Benton, Wdbster, Clay and Calhoun, was asked how Davis cpmpared with these great Senators. He replied: ^^Davis was the most accomplished.” Bidpath and other great historians knew Davis intimately. Bidpath said: ^^He was a statesman with clean hands and a pure heart, who served his people faithfully, from budding manhood to hoary age, without thought of self, with unbending integrity, to the best of his ability. All who knew him personally were proud that he was their countryman.” Others won more laurels on the field of Mars. Bushed to the helm of the Confederate ship of state in a tornado, he proved to be the greatest combination of heart and brain which ever commanded 600,000 men and held out for four years against 2,800,000. Every year the tenderest hands will cull the sweetest flowers, weave them into garlands and deck the gateway through which Davis and his heroes marched to glory. The name of Davis will shine as a star of the first magnitude until the muse of history writes ^Tinis’’ ivith a pen of fire. AN APPEAL TO THE CONFEDERATE SOL¬ DIERS AND TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS OF NORTH CAROLINA If you will send thirty-seven cents to D. A. Long, Franklinton, A N. C., you can secure a booklet which has been endorsed by the Board of Education for our State. Also commended for its legal and his¬ torical accuracy, as well as its high literary quality, by such high au¬ thority as Chief Justice Clark, General Halderman, the President of Yale University, Hon. J. Y. Joyner, the late leader in Congress, Claude « Kitchin, and many others. The following is a copy of a letter I sent Dr, Daniel Albright Long, May 21,1923: “It is a source of unfeigned pleasure to me to add my com* J mendation to your very valuable address on ‘The Place of Jef¬ ferson Davis in History.’ It is a fearless and truthful state¬ ment of facts. This valuable contribution to the truths of his¬ tory has been very much needed. Permit me to congratulate you upon the efficiency and ability with which you have accomplished this good work. I fail to remember a more valuable contribu¬ tion. It is one of the outstanding events of history that has come to my attention. Your arguments seem to me to be unanswer¬ able, and certainly you have rendered a valuable contribution to the truths of history. Your exceedingly interesting and invalu¬ able book should be in every library and home.” Most respectfully, Julian S. Carr. EXPRESSIONS from HIGH AUTHORITIES in REGARD to the BOOK JEFFERSON DAVIS BY Daniel Albright Long Dr. Long’s Book has been recommended by the State Board of Education of North Carolina for use in the Schools OF THE State Price Singu? Copy 35c (Postage Extra, 4c) 100 OK More Copies, Per Copy, 25c The North Carolina Historical Commission Office of thr Secretary Raleigh Dr. Daniel Albright Long, FranJclinton, N. C. July 6, 1921. Dear Dr. Long: I thank you for the opportunity to read your manuscript address on President Davis. As Mr. Davis has been so bitterly maligned I am glad that you have undertaken to give in it an accurate account of him and his work, and I feel sure that this publication will do much good, and set others to inquire into the facts of his life. With highest regards, Very truly yours, D. H. Hill. State of North Carolina Department of State Raleigh, July 8, 1921. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. Dear Doctor: I thank you for the opportunity to read your address on President Davis delivered at Concord. It is a splendid and worthy tribute to a great and most patriotic American. I wish the facts that you have brought out could be placed in the hands of many prejudiced and ignorant writers of American History. I wish ev'en more that the teachers of History in North Carolina could imbibe your spirit and get the truths you present in their minds. With thanks and best wishes, I am. Sincerely, J. Bryan Grimes. State of North Carolina Supreme Court Raleigh July 11,,1921. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. Dear Doctor: It has been a pleasure and a privilege to read your address on President Davis recently delivered at Concord, N. C. It is not only a just and eloquent tribute to a great and good man, and patriotic American citizen, but it presents a forcible statement of the right of secession, for which our fathers fought, and of which Mr. Davis was the able and con¬ spicuous exponent and defender—in my estimate, a doctrine undoubtedly correct under the Constitution as it then existed. The paper derives additional value also from the emphasis and approval given to the principle of local self-government, so essential to the endurance and well-ordered progress of the Republic. We are, and have good reason to be, grateful for this adequate, thoughtful, and timely address. Very respectfully, W. A. Hoke. State of North Carolina Supreme Court Raleigh June 30th, 1921. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. Dear Sir. Thanks for sending me the enclosed which I have read with great interest. It is a very able and instructive speech. There is no criti¬ cism that I can make of it except in its praise. Very truly yours, Walter Clark. The News and Observer Raleigh, N. C. Josephus Daniels, President January 28, 1922, Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. My dear Dr. Long: —Mr. Daniels and I both read your appreciation of Jefferson Davis with great interest and I hope you will be able to print It in such shape as will give it wide circulation. It is very fine. Mr. Daniels joins me in regards. Sincerely yours, Addie Bagley Daniels. (From the wife of the greatest Secretary of the Navy the United States ever had.) State of North Carolina Raleigh Treasury Department July 6, 1921. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. My dear Sir: Your address before the veterans in Concord on the 3rd has been read with a great deal of pleasure. In fact, I have read it care¬ fully through twice, and I enjoyed it very much more the second time than I did the first. I want to thank you for allowing me the privilege of seeing it I think it is one of the most valuable historical documents I have read iri years, and I sincerely hope that it will be printed, so that it will get into the hands of not only the children but the people of North Carolina. It shows that you have given it long thought and a great deal of labor, and it is well worth to the people of North Carolina all that you have given it. For my part I want to thank you for having made it. Yours truly, B. R. Lacy, State Treasurer. The North Carolina Historical Commission Office of the Secretary Raleigh ‘ July 6, 1921. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. My' dear Dr. Long: I have read with much pleasure and profit your admirable sketch 'of a man who is greatly misunderstood by many—Jefferson’ Davis—and his place in history. It misses no points, and its directness’ and conciseness add to its value. I congratulate you on such a document. Sincerely yours, Fred A. Olds. From The Editor of the Christian Sun Richmond, Va. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. Dear Dr. Long: I am pleased to see that your book has won a place in the school work of North Carolina. It is’indeed worthy of the attention of the leading people of the State, to say nothing of the school children. I regard it as without a rival in literature in point of the matter it contains, and also as to the literary character of the work. Sincerely yours, J. Pressly Barrett. Edwards & Broughton Printing Company Raleigh, N. C. Charles Lee Smith, President March 20, 1923. Dr. Daniel Albright Long, Franklinton, N. C. Dear Dr. Long: I am glad to know that you will publish your Monograph on Jefferson Davis and that it has been recommended by the North Carolina e Board of Education for use in the schools of this State. Every teacher who would correctly interpret the history of the War between the States should have a copy and I hope your book will be read by every student in our schools. Sincerely yours, Charles Lee Smith. EDWARDS & BROUGHTON PRINTING CO.. RALFi'^H. N. O. THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION