198-203. No inference is here intended that the laws provided by the states against false & defamatory publications, should not be enforced. Cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, provisions, timber, and naval stores will furnish attractive exchanges. 'The union of these states is perpetual,' or permanent, he declared. with those too, not yet rallied to the same point, the disposition to do so is gaining strength. The confidence of the most hopeful among us must have been destroyed by the disregard they have recently exhibited for all the time-honored bulwarks of civil and religious liberty. So spoke Frederick Douglass soon after he heard Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address on March 4, 1865. They are diacritical marks to assist Jefferson in the oral delivery of the address. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers, and to preserve in spirit, as well as in form, a system of government we believed to be peculiarly fitted to our condition, and full of promise for mankind, we determined to make a new association, composed of States homogeneous in interest, in policy, and in feeling. Fellow-Citizens: On this the birthday of the man most identified with the establishment of American independence, and beneath the monument erected to commemorate his heroic virtues and those of his compatriots, we have assembled to usher into existence the Permanent Government of the Confederate States. if there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its Supplement must be sought in the Censorship of Public opinion. Fellow-citizens, after the struggle of ages had consecrated the right of the Englishman to constitutional representative government, our colonial ancestors were forced to vindicate that birthright by an appeal to arms. Members of the foreign diplomatic corps were also present. Upon the first call the men flew to arms, and wifes and mothers send their husbands and sons to battle without a murmur of regret. Jeffersons painstaking work in preparing the reading copy was worthwhile in allowing him to put the full text of the speech on the two faces of the single sheet. President Lincoln also referred back to his first inauguration and reflected on the instability of the government at that time. The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Chapter 14 - #1. Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States during the war, stated that the state is the most important entity and that states have the authority to ignore laws that are unconstitutional. But now he shifted his focus from preserving the union to restoring it. All rights reserved. the address took final form. but the weaknesses of human nature, & the limits of my own understanding will produce errors of judgment sometimes injurious to your interests. Home. I shall need therefore all the indulgence which I have heretofore experienced from my constituents. The address has drawn more attention from scholars of Jeffersons public presentation and expression of executive authority, but it remains secondary to his first address. But in the heart of a people resolved to be free these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance. preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources, relating to the history of But the Government at Washington, denying our right to self-government, refused even to listen to any proposals for a peaceful separation. At the Capitol, a mixed assemblage of Senators, Populace, Representatives, and ladies gathered in the Senate chamber. facts are piercing through the veil drawn over them: & our doubting brethren will at length see that the mass of their fellow citizens, with whom they cannot yet resolve to act, as to principles & measures, think as they think, & desire what they desire. We too have had our trials and difficulties. Lincoln's First Inaugural Address Summary & Analysis | What was Lincoln's First Inaugural Address? In the 6 Mch. A million of men, it is estimated, are now standing in hostile array, and waging war along a frontier of thousands of miles. The people of the States now confederated became convinced that the Government of the United States had fallen into the hands of a sectinal majority, who would pervert that most sacred of all trusts to the destruction of the rights which it was pledged to protect. and in any view, is it not better that the opposite bank of the Missisipi should be settled by our own brethren & children than by strangers of another family? Nothing was then left to do but to prepare for war. I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it: but have left them, as the constitution found them, under the direction & discipline of the state or church authorities acknoleged by the several religious societies. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Published by Princeton University Press and copyrighted, 2021, by Princeton University Press. The great principles upon which we have been willing to hazard everything that is dear to man have made conquests for us which could never have been achieved by the sword. Among the observers in the gallery was the outgoing vice president, Aaron Burr, who had been dropped from the ticket for Jeffersons second term. that our wish, as well as theirs, is, that the public efforts may be directed honestly to the public good: that peace be cultivated, civil & religious liberty unassailed, law & order preserved, equality of rights maintained, & that state of property, equal or unequal, which results to every man from his own industry, or that of his fathers. it is due to the sound discretion with which they select from among themselves those to whom they confide the legislative duties. Almost all Americans have heard these opening words spoken by President Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg Address in 1863. In his address, he did not embrace the North's demands for a reunion of states, which he described as 'neither practicable nor desirable.' 17 terms. In this lesson, we will briefly examine how Jefferson Davis expressed his views on liberty, equality, union, and government in his first inaugural address. When a long course of class legislation, directed not to the general welfare, but to the aggrandizement of the Northern section of the Union, culminated in a warfare on the domestic institutions of the Southern Stateswhen the dogmas of a sectional party, substituted for the provisions of the constitutional compact, threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a Government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation of which that Union was established. We have neither asked nor received assistance from any quarter. Secession was declared in Missouri and Kentucky but did not eventually go through. With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowledging the Providence which has so visibly protected the Confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to thee, O God, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke thy blessing on my country and its cause. We too have had our trials and difficulties. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. public. I shall now enter on the duties to which my fellow-citizens have again called me, & shall proceed in the spirit of those principles which they have approved. President Lincoln believed that the union must be preserved, or kept whole. By 17 Apr., shortly after the address had reached the frontier of the United States in Louisiana, the London. Well, Lincoln's second inaugural address was similar in tone to his first. Yet the interest involved is not wholly our own. . Nor would the constancy of these supplies be likely to be disturbed by war. Remember how Davis argued that it was a necessity for the South to leave the union? At home, fellow-citizens, you best know whether we have done well or ill. the suppression of unnecessary offices, of useless establishments and expences, enabled us to discontinue our internal taxes. Our Confederacy has grown from six to thirteen States; and Maryland, already united to us by hallowed memories and material interests, will, I believe, when able to speak with unstifled voice, connect her destiny with the South. When the independence of the Confederate States is recognized by the nations of the earth, and we are free to follow our interests and inclinations by cultivating foreign trade, the Southern States will offer to manufacturing nations the most favorable markets which ever invited their commerce. we have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry & houshold use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of first necessity; and they are covered with the Aegis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves. Our people have rallied with unexampled unanimity to the support of the great principles of constitutional government, with firm resolve to perpetuate by arms the right which they could not peacefully secure. Title. If so, the document has kinship to his January 1804 notes of conversations with Aaron Burr and Benjamin Hichborn (Vol. He then returned to the Presidents House, where according to Foster he was in high spirits as everyone by common accord went to pay him a visit of congratulation. The 8 Mch. Nothing could be so bad as failure, and any sacrifice would be cheap as the price of success in such a contest. Jayme has taught courses in middle and high school Social Studies and holds a Master's degree in Social Studies Education. we have done them justice on all occasions; favor, where favor was lawful, & cherished mutual interests & intercourse on fair & equal terms. Since he did not think secession was valid, he therefore did not view the government of the Confederacy as legitimate either. Rice University--MS 215 Several last-minute changes were made after Jefferson drafted the finished address. 10:498n). Whatever of hope some may have entertained that a returning sense of justice would remove the danger with which our rights were threatened, and render it possible to preserve the Union of the Constitution, must have been dispelled by the malignity and barbarity of the Northern States in the prosecution of the existing war. P.O. Never has a people evinced a more determined spirit than that now animating men, women, and children in every part of our country. Our Confederacy has grown from six to thirteen States; and Maryland, already united to us by hallowed memories and material interests, will, I believe, when able to speak with unstifled voice, connect her destiny with the South. I know that the acquisition of Louisiana has been disapproved by some, from a candid apprehension that the enlargement of our territory would endanger its union. Jefferson Davis First Inaugural Address Author: Michael Movius Created Date: 20111017065926Z . Jack Shorter, an enslaved stable hand at the Presidents House, may have been the groom. Never has a people evinced a more determined spirit than that now animating men, women, and children in every part of our country. They believed that to remain longer in the Union would subject them to a continuance of a disparaging discrimination, submission to which would be inconsistent with their welfare, and intolerable to a proud people. In this second Inaugural Address, Davis, now President of the Confederate States, speaks from what is now the Capitol of the Confederate States of America, Richmond Virginia. It was to be expected when we entered upon this war that it would expose our people to sacrifices and cost them much, both of money and blood. The courts have been open, the judicial functions fully executed, and every right of the peaceful citizen maintained as securely as if a war of invasion had not disturbed the land. "Jefferson Davis' Second Inaugural Address," The Papers of Jefferson Davis, accessed March 13, 2015, https: . Soon to come: Gettysburg . Civil war there cannot be between States held together by their volition only. The Papers of Jefferson Davis In return for their kindness I can offer assurances of the gratitude with which it is received; and can but pledge a zealous devotion of every faculty to the service of those who have chosen me as their Chief Magistrate. He consistently spoke of preserving the union and the worthiness of fighting for it. Davis was inaugurated and hoped that his role would only be temporary until the permanent government was established. This website helped me pass! Sometime between that date and 4 Mch. In each of the segments illustrated above, a single long stroke appears in a high position midway along the line. "Second Inaugural Address, 4 March 1805," Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/99-01-02-1302. Gallatin took issue with the presentation of the press in the draft he reviewed (see, When he had the address in the form he wanted, Jefferson used his polygraph to help him make multiple copies and submitted the final text to Samuel Harrison Smith for printing. Augustus John Foster, the 24-year-old secretary of the British legation in Washington, left a record of the details he observed on that day. He assured the Confederacy that he had 'malice toward none, and charity for all.' At the end of a line, as seen in the first two details shown above, he put a double stroke or a third mark in the form of a long cross or dagger. But the picture has its lights as well as its shadows. flashcard sets. Those Who Labor for My Happiness: Slavery at Thomas Jeffersons Monticello, Jefferson, Natural Language, & the Culture of Performance, The Dublin Orator: Thomas Sheridans Influence on Eighteenth-Century Rhetoric and Belles Letters, A Course of Lectures on Elocution Together with Two Dissertations on Language and Some Other Tracts Relative to Those Subjects, Rhetorical Grammar of the English Language, A Rhetorical Grammar of the English Language, History of the Principal Events of the Reign of Frederic William II, Jefferson and Civil Liberties: The Darker Side, American, and Commercial Daily Advertiser, The Inaugural Addresses of President Thomas Jefferson, 1801 and 1805, Gazette Nationale ou le Moniteur Universel, The Inaugural Addresses of President Thomas Jefferson, Philip Mazzei: Selected Writings and Correspondence, History of the United States of America during the Second Administration of Thomas Jefferson, Topics for Inaugural Address, [before 8 Feb. 1805], James Madisons Remarks on a Draft, [8 Feb. 1805], Albert Gallatins Remarks on a Draft, [12 Feb. 1805], James Madisons Remarks on a Draft, [21 Feb. 1805], Notes on the Second Inaugural Address, [February 1805? An error occurred trying to load this video. Printers, Jefferson argued, needed to be held accountable for disseminating dishonest or licentious information. To show ourselves worthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us by the patriots of the Revolution, we must emulate that heroic devotion which made reverse to them but the crucible in which their patriotism was refined. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher, except for reading and browsing via the World Wide Web. In return for their kindness I can offer assurances of the gratitude with which it is received; and can but pledge a zealous devotion of every faculty to the service of those who have chosen me as their Chief Magistrate. Jefferson Davis Sets the Tone. in the mean time, let us cherish them with patient affection: let us do them justice and more than justice in all competitions of interest; & we need not doubt that truth, reason, & their own interests will at length prevail, will gather them into the fold of their country, & will compleat that entire union of opinion which gives to a nation the blessing of harmony & the benefit of all its strength. In it, he outlined the principles that would guide his administration, including a commitment to limited government, individual liberty, and the rule of law. and, that redemption once effected, the revenue thereby liberated may, by a just repartition of it among the states, & a corresponding amendment of the constitution, be applied, in time of peace, to rivers, canals, roads, arts, manufactures, education, & other great objects within each state. . He believed that the slaves in the Confederacy would eventually be free, and that it was their God-given right to enjoy freedom and equality like all American citizens. Plus, get practice tests, quizzes, and personalized coaching to help you you have witnessed the scene. Nothing could be so bad as failure, and any sacrifice would be cheap as the price of success in such a contest. With confidence in the wisdom and virtue of those who will share with me the responsibility and aid me in the conduct of public affairs; securely relying on the patriotism and courage of the people, of which the present war has furnished so many examples, I deeply feel the weight of the responsibilities I now, with unaffected diffidence, am about to assume; and, fully realizing the inequality of human power to guide and to sustain, my hope is reverently fixed on Him whose favor is ever vouchsafed to the cause which is just. If the acquiescence of foreign nations in a pretended blockade has deprived us of our commerce with them, it is fast making us a self-supporting and an independent people. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. Records Commission (NHPRC) is part of the National At the darkest hour of our struggle the Provisional gives place to the Permanent Government. During this course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the Press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. Abraham Lincoln was reelected to a second term as President of the United States in 1865. And naval stores will furnish attractive exchanges printers, Jefferson argued, needed to free., timber, and ladies gathered in the Censorship of Public opinion president Lincoln also referred back to his 1804... 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