...How idle is this prating about natural rights as though still containing all that had been forfeited. - Jefferson Davis

Sir, it is true that republics have often been cradled in war, but more often they have met with a grave in that cradle. Peace is the interest, the policy, the nature of a popular Government. War may bring benefits to a few, but privation and loss are the lot of the many. An appeal to arms should be the last resort, and only by national rights or national honor can it be justified.

We feel that our cause is just and holy... [W]e seek no conquest... [A]ll we ask is to be left alone.

We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority.