Jefferson Davis' First Inaugural Address Alabama Capitol, Montgomery, February 18, 1861 Gentlemen of the Congress of the Confederate States of America, Friends and Fellow-Citizens: In spite of his laborious attempt to discountenance the opposition to philosophy and to make a statement about the opposition press, Jefferson recognized, as he wrote in his Notes on a Draught for a second inaugural Address, that the nature of the occasion requires that detail should be avoided. He used the address to make his case for the performance of his earlier promises and to lay out a foundation for governing performance in a second term (Adams, The Two Duchesses: Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire, Elizabeth Duchess of Devonshire. When he started is not known, as he did not put dates on any of the surviving draft fragments. Students also viewed. They therefore determined to sever its bonds and establish a new Confederacy for themselves. At the capitol in Richmond, Virginia, Davis gave his second inaugural speech. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut | Writer & Significance, SAT Subject Test World History: Practice and Study Guide, DSST The Civil War & Reconstruction: Study Guide & Test Prep, Important People in World History Study Guide, Major Events in World History Study Guide, TCI History Alive World Connections: Online Textbook Help, Glencoe The American Journey: Online Textbook Help, TCI History Alive America's Past: Online Textbook Help, TCI History Alive The United States Through Industrialism: Online Textbook Help, Create an account to start this course today. Success crowned their efforts, and they provided for the posterity a peaceful remedy against future aggression. He apparently had a complete draft by 8 Feb., for on that day he received James Madisons response, followed on the 12th by remarks from Albert Gallatin and from Henry Dearborn the following day. But the picture has its lights as well as its shadows. He continued to use the idea of a national union of sentiment to depict hardened opposition as an anomaly and the worst Federalist printers as a numerically small holdout of false and backwards thought. It is cultivating feelings of patriotism, virtue, and courage. Seven Southern states had already seceded, or broken away, from the United States and formed the Confederacy. Proceeding, fellow citizens, to that qualification which the constitution requires before my entrance on the charge again conferred on me, it is my duty to express the deep sense I entertain of this new proof of confidence from my fellow citizens at large, and the zeal with which it inspires me so to conduct myself as may best satisfy their just expectations. In the 6 Mch. Nor would the constancy of these supplies be likely to be disturbed by war. but the experiment is noted to prove that, since truth & reason have maintained their ground against false opinions, in league with false facts, the Press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint. the experiment has been tried. He likely meant the undated Notes, written sometime after he had finished writing the address, to be part of his personal record of the politics of his era. He directed his words at convincing them that he was not their enemy, but a friend. Which of the following is true of Jefferson Davis and his governing? 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. Whether a government, conducting itself in the true spirit of its constitution with zeal and purity, and doing no act which it would be unwilling the whole world should witness, can be written down by falsehood & defamation? In matters of Religion, I have considered that its free exercise is placed by the constitution independant of the powers of the general government. 17 terms. Although perhaps not as famous as Lincoln, Jefferson Davis' words still play an important role in American history. I am sensible of no passion which could seduce me knowingly from the path of justice. Houston, Texas 77251-1892, Phone and Fax Numbers 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. Yet the interest involved is not wholly our own. Lincoln's second inaugural address: described the Civil War as divine punishment. Permission Information, 2023The Trustees of Princeton University, The Papers of Thomas JeffersonPrinceton University LibraryPrinceton, NJ 08544609-258-3162, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 45: 11 November 1804 to 8 March 1805, (Princeton University Press, 2021), 625-63. Where Abraham Lincoln would offer logical reasoning, Jefferson would strike out with accusations at the Union. Home. Davis was inaugurated and hoped that his role would only be temporary until the permanent government was established. P.O. Julian Boyd linked the markings on that early version of the Declaration to the marks present in this reading script. War will then be but a suspension of useful works; & a return to a state of peace a return to the progress of improvement. 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. But how many of you can quote an excerpt from a speech given by Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy? Lincoln hoped that he could prevent the conflict from escalating by taking a peaceful approach on the divisive issue of slavery. The first year in our history has been the most eventful in the annals of this continent. I have no doubt, he wrote, that it was printed long before I left Washington & was brot to Baltimore in the same stage that brought me. The. Second Inaugural Address Washington, DC. But we knew the value of the object for which we struggled, and understood the nature of the war in which we were engaged. A new Government has been established, and its machinery put in operation over an area exceeding seven hundred thousand square miles. Through this instrumentality, under the favor of Divine Providence, we hope to perpetuate the principles of our revolutionary fathers. Well, Lincoln's second inaugural address was similar in tone to his first. That we are to escape them in future is not to be hoped. 'Physically speaking we cannot separate. Jefferson Davis (pictured here on the eve of the Civil War) delivered his second inaugural address in Richmond, Virginia, on February 22, 1862., "Second Inaugural Address," Textbook, accessed January 24, . if there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its Supplement must be sought in the Censorship of Public opinion. .' For proof of the sincerity of our purpose to maintain our ancient institutions, we may point to the Constitution of the Confederacy and the laws enacted under it, as well as to the fact that through all the necessities of an unequal struggle there has been no act on our part to impair personal liberty or the freedom of speech, of thought, or of the press. It was, perhaps, in the ordination of Providence that we were to be taught the value of our liberties by the price which we pay for them. Augustus John Foster, the 24-year-old secretary of the British legation in Washington, left a record of the . Jefferson had begun writing the address weeks earlier. In a later reading of the marks, Jay Fliegelman instead asserted that, based on the placement and appearance of the markings, they represented not accented syllables but rhythmical pauses of emphatical stress used to divide the piece into units comparable to musical bars or poetic lines (Julian P. Boyd, The Declaration of Independence: The Mystery of the Lost Original,, The marks are nearly identical to those recommended by Irish actor, speaker, and rhetorician Thomas Sheridan, whom Jefferson occasionally recommended to young scholars seeking reading lists. If so, the document has kinship to his January 1804 notes of conversations with Aaron Burr and Benjamin Hichborn (Vol. The National Historical Publications and Lincoln in his first inaugural address opens quickly by listing off many ways in which he will hold his bias and use a neutral . 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. Never has a people evinced a more determined spirit than that now animating men, women, and children in every part of our country. Learn more about Davis' views and how they differed from those expressed by Abraham Lincoln in his public address. 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. On the other side of the political aisle, the. Election of 1860 Candidates, Summary & Significance | Who Won the Election of 1860? In that address he explicitly condemned political intolerancedeclared all were federalists, all were republicansYet in a few days after that, he removed many deserving men from office, because they were federalists. He also criticized Jefferson as imprudent for explicitly censuring & condemning former Administrations & lavishing encomiums on himself for effecting a discontinuance of the Internal Revenues, and for his expansive complaints about abuse by the press: One would have thought that Mr. Jefferson after having hired such infamous wretches as Freneau, Bache, Duane, Callender, Payne & others, to defame villify & calumniate, Washington, Adams, & their associateshe would not have complained of news paper publications! But even Plumer admitted that Jefferson has his talents& those of the popular kind, since it was an important practice for him to never pursue a measure if it becomes unpopular (Brown, John Tyler expressed the opposite view in a letter to Jefferson, writing that without flattery, the address adds a Lustre to the whole of your Life if any thing coud be necessary to highten your public Character. He anticipated that any who continued to oppose Jeffersons administration must see the soundness of the reasoning, and the temper and philanthropy with which it is expressd, and it would have the happyest effect on every person not so vicious as to persist in Spite of Light and truth in a perverse Opinion. Jefferson replied with appreciation, reiterating to Tyler that performance was the proper office of the second inaugural, in contrast to profession and promise in the first. The blockade, if effectual and permanent, could only serve to divert our industry from the production of articles for export and employ it in supplying the commodities for domestic use. being collected on our sea-board and frontiers only, & incorporated with the transactions of our mercantile citizens, it may be the pleasure and the pride of an American to ask What farmer, what mechanic, what labourer ever sees a tax-gatherer of the US.? Jefferson's Inauguration in Montgomery On February 18th, 1861, Davis gave his inaugural address on the steps of the Montgomery, Alabama state capital building. There was a small crowd in. 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. Battles have been fought, sieges have been conducted, and, although the contest is not ended, and the tide for the moment is against us, the final result in our favor is not doubtful. As with his first Inaugural as Chief Executive of the provisional government, Davis again makes a argument based on the sovereignty of states to control their own futures and, lacking an agreement with the Union, have seen no choice but to go to war. they are combated by the habits of their bodies, prejudices of their minds, ignorance, pride, & the influence of interested & crafty individuals among them, who feel themselves something in the present order of things, and fear to become nothing in any other. It is with mingled feelings of humility and pride that I appear to take, in the presence of the people and before high Heaven, the oath prescribed as a qualification for the exalted station to which the unanimous voice of the people has called me. He assured the Confederacy that he had 'malice toward none, and charity for all.' Jefferson asked for comments from Robert Smith on 14 Feb., and received a second set of notes from Madison on the 21st. In each of the segments illustrated above, a single long stroke appears in a high position midway along the line. Printers, Jefferson argued, needed to be held accountable for disseminating dishonest or licentious information. the larger our association, the less will it be shaken by local passions. Contemplating the union of sentiment now manifested so generally, as auguring harmony & happiness to our future course, I offer to our country sincere congratulations. 198-203. 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. Lincoln appeared at the battlefield to dedicate a cemetery in honor of the fallen soldiers from the North who fought a heroic battle to help end slavery. Rather, he wanted to stop slavery from spreading into other territories. Yet for all the effort and thought he invested in making the copy a script for oral delivery, as an oration the address failed. and it is due to the able and faithful auxiliaries, whose patriotism has associated them with me in the executive functions. Instances of self-sacrifice and of generous devotion to the noble cause for which we are contending are rife throughout the land. Vice president of the Confederate States (1812-1883) On this day in 1861, former U.S. 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. I have said, fellow-citizens, that the income reserved had enabled us to extend our limits. 90 terms. The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. topics (general topics): the advantages of a peaceful system that made possible a favorable state of public finances in which the country had the ability to pay off its debts and eliminate internal taxes; removals from office; a third topic that he named only as Philosophy; and finally licentiousness of press (see, Using a process that he had come to employ in composing his annual messages to Congress, he proceeded to draft each of the topical sections independently. Instances of self-sacrifice and of generous devotion to the noble cause for which we are contending are rife throughout the land. They therefore determined to sever its bonds and establish a new Confederacy for themselves. 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. 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. While the war had started favorably for the Confederate States, the first several weeks of 1862 found the North was winning all the battles. but that extension may possibly pay for itself, before we are called on, & in the mean time may keep down the accruing interest: in all events it will replace the advances we shall have made. 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. 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. Recognizing that his treatment of the topic of Philosophy in the address was unorthodox, he apparently wrote the Notes on a Draught for a second inaugural Address to memorialize the decision for his ongoing record of his own times. The closing remarks of his speech described exactly the kind of government he envisioned for the union: a government 'of the people, by the people, for the people.'. in time of war, if injustice by ourselves or others must sometimes produce war, increased as the same revenue will be by increased population & consumption, & aided by other resources reserved for that crisis, it may meet within the year all the expences of the year, without encroaching on the rights of future generations by burthening them with the debts of the past. President Lincoln believed that the union must be preserved, or kept whole. 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. This website helped me pass! In his second inaugural address, Lincoln said that slavery "was, somehow, the . Another piece from his drafting of the second inaugural address is on the same sheet as fragments of text from Jefferson's early drafting of his first and third annual messages to Congress in 1801 and 1803 ( Document II ). That we are to escape them in future is not to be hoped. 198-203. but who can limit the extent to which the federative principle may operate effectively? Lincoln memorably said that the United States was conceived, or born, in liberty and that 'all men' are created equal. Davis's inaugural address sought to prove that the formation of the Confederate States of America--and his Presidency over them--was, under the terms of the founding documents of the United States, lawful and even prescribed. The day, the memory, and the purpose seem fitly associated. 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. Jeffersons meticulous drafting process was not understood previously, and despite the widespread circulation of the text in 1805 the second inaugural address has received significantly less scholarly attention than his first address. With these techniques, Jefferson rendered the sentence The Aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires as: The sentence I have therefore undertaken, on no occasion, to prescribe the religious exercises suited to it appears as: And they too have their Anti-Philosophists, who find an interest he copied as: Visible in those examples are additional markings that do not represent letters of the alphabet. 1862 (and Washington's birthday), Davis gave a second inaugural address, after winning an election under . To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member. Virginia Capitol, Richmond, February 22, 1862 [1]. It was, perhaps, in the ordination of Providence that we were to be taught the value of our liberties by the price which we pay for them. In what was probably Lincoln's most famous speech, the Gettysburg Address of 1863, he delivered a solemn message after a battle in which approximately 50,000 soldiers died. it is due to the zeal & wisdom of the characters thus selected, who lay the foundations of public happiness in wholsome laws, the execution of which alone remains for others. Jefferson Davis Second Inaugural Address of Jefferson Davis as President of the Permanent Government of the Confederate States of America on February 22, 1862 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 . Create your account, 26 chapters | George Washington had chosen to speak only briefly, and John Adams had not had the opportunity to give one. 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