Historical Quotes
I do not...hesitate to avow before this House and the country, and in the presence of the
living God, that if by your legislation you seek to drive us from the territories of California
and New Mexico, purchased by the common blood and treasure of the whole people, and to
abolish slavery in this District, thereby attempting to fix a national degradation upon half
the States of this Confederacy, I am for disunion.
Representative Robert Toombs of Georgia, 1849
With the ever watchful eye that the Slave Power has had over its own interests...with
slaveholding Presidents and Cabinets of their selection, forty-nine years out of sixtyone....The Slave Power, like the power of the pit, never lacks for a stratagem....The embargo
[of 1807]...was levelled at the commercial prosperity of the free North....From the beginning
of the first embargo, therefore, in Dec., 1807, until the peace of Dec., 1814...the commerce of
the free States was either totally prohibited, or rendered of little pecuniary power....
In 1811, the charter of the old National Bank expired, and was not permitted by the
dominant Slave Power to be renewed, on the alleged ground that a national bank was
unconstitutional....The real reason was that the South had become bankrupt...throwing off
the greater part of its indebtedness upon its creditors in some other community....The Slave
Power now demanded a war...."Free trade and sailors' rights" was now the southern
watchword....the war party was led on by John C. Calhoun....New England would be the
sufferer by the war and the North would be burdened with the chief expense of the
affliction...despoiling it of half its remaining wealth....
Thus Slavery controls all the leading measures of the nation and moulds its political
economy.
William Goodell, 1852
We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the promise of putting
an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only
not ceased but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease until a crisis shall
have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this
government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union
to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--but I do expect it will cease to be
divided....Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it...or its
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well
as new, North as well as South. Have we no tendency to the latter condition?
The new year of 1854 found slavery excluded from more than half the States by State
constitutions, and from most of the national territory by congressional prohibition. Four
days later commenced the struggle which ended in repealing that congressional prohibition.
This opened all the national territory to slavery....While the Nebraska bill was passing
through Congress, a law case involving the question of a Negro's freedom...was passing
through the United States Circuit Court....The Negro's name was Dred Scott.... Field Test Edition 2008-09
73
The several points of the Dred Scott decision...constitute the piece of machinery in its
present state of advancement....The working points of that machinery are:
(1) That no Negro slave, imported as such from Africa, and no descendant of
such slave, can ever be a citizen of any State, in the sense of that term as used in the
Constitution of the United States....
(2) That, "subject to the Constitution of the United States," neither Congress nor a
territorial legislature can exclude slavery from any United States Territory....
We cannot absolutely know that all these exact adaptations are the result of preconcert.
But when we see a lot of framed timbers, different portions of which we know have been
gotten out at different times and places and by different workmen--Stephen, Franklin,
Roger, and James, for instance--and we see these timbers joined together, and see they
exactly make the frame of a house or a mill, all the tenons and mortises exactly fitting, and
all the lengths and proportions of the different pieces exactly adapted to their respective
places, and not a piece too many or too few...in such a case we find it impossible not to
believe that Stephen and Franklin and Roger and James all understood one another from
the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan or draft drawn up before the first blow
was struck.
Abraham Lincoln, 1858
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order; and
altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and
so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect...This
opinion was at the time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race.
Chief Justice Roger Taney, Dred Scott case
If the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist
on letting them go in peace. The right to secede may be a revolutionary one, but it exists
nevertheless....Whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go
out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a
republic, whereof one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets.
New York Tribune, 1860
I firmly believe that the slave-holding South is now the controlling power of the world--that
no other power would face us in hostility. Cotton, rice, tobacco, and naval stores command
the world; and we have sense to know it, and are sufficiently Teutonic to carry it out
successfully. The North without us would be a motherless calf, bleating about, and die of
mange and starvation.
Senator James H. Hammond of South Carolina
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![Civil War Quotes 1864-1865 “War is simply power restrained by the constitution or compact” –Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “Lee’s army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.” -Gen. Ulysses S. Grant “If victorious, we have everything to live for. If defeated, there will be nothing to live for.” –Gen. Robert E. Lee “Face the fire and go in where it is hottest.” –Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill “Scarce we had moved a step, when Gen. Lee, in front of the whole command, raised himself in his stirrups, uncovered his grey hairs, and with an earnest, yet anxious voice, exclaimed above the din and confusion of the hour, “Texans always move them.”… Never before in my lifetime or since, did I ever witness such a scene as was enacted when Lee pronounced these words, with the appealing look he gave. A yell rent the air that must have been heard for miles around, and but few eyes in that old brigade of veterans and heroes of many a bloody field was undimmed by honest, heartfelt tears. [The man next to me,] with tears coursing down his cheeks and yells issuing from his throat exclaimed, ‘I would charge hell itself for that old man.’” –Pvt. Robert Campell, 5 th Texas Infantry “I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.” –Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the battle of the Wilderness “I saw two hundred wagons crowded with wounded men. The dark spot in the mud told all too plainly where some poor fellow’s life had dripped out in those dreadful hours. While our soldiers fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them. My place is anywhere between the bullet and the battlefield.” –Clara Barton “Grant’s military standing with the enlisted men this day hung on the direction we turned at the Chancellorsville House. If to the left, he was to be rated with Meade and Hooker and Burnside and Popethe generals who preceded him….[W]e turned to the right. Instantly all of us heard a sigh of relief. Our spirits rose. We marched freely. The men began to sing. The enlisted men understood the flanking movement. That night we were happy.” –Pvt. Frank Wilkenson “Go back! Go back! And do your duty, as I have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back! Go back! I had rather die than be whipped.” –Gen. J.E.B. Stuart at Yellow Tavern “I will not take my regiment in another such charge if Jesus Christ himself should order it!” –Union Capt. Thomas E. Baker“Follow Forrest to the death if it cost ten thousand lives and breaks the [Federal] treasury. There will be no peace in Tennessee till Forrest is dead.” –Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “I steadily believe that Grant is going to succeed, and that we shall have Richmond-but oh what a price to pay for it!” –Walt Whitman “This war is eating my life out. I have a strong impression that I shall not live to see the end.” –Abraham Lincoln “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!” –Adm. David Glasgow Farragut at Mobile Bay “If slaves make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” –Gen. Howell Cobb “This morning, as for some time past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.” –Abraham Lincoln “If the North can march and army right through the South, it is proof positive that the North can prevail….I will not attempt to send couriers back, but trust to the Richmond papers to keep you well advised. I can make this march and make Georgia howl!” –Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “The truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems to be in store for her.” – Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “I begin to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah.” –Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “I want Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field with instructions to put himself south of the enemy and follow him to the death.” –Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant “Reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life.” –Gen. Phillip H. Sheridan “Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” –Abraham Lincoln, Nov 21, 1864, to Lydia Bixby, a widow who supposedly lost five sons in the war, some doubt Lincoln wrote the letter.“Both sides read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.” –Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 “I mean to end this business here.” Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Petersburg, March 1865 “The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again.” –Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, April 9, 1865 “Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood, with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bonds. Was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a union so tested and assured?...We cannot look into those brave, bronzed faces and think of hate and personal mean revenge. Whoever had misled these men, we had not. We had led them back home.” –Union Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, at the surrender ceremonies at Appomattox. April 12, 1865.](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU8G6u4QPWcK5T9qRJwSO8drMRKdIKE-6ath-0PdjMd4PU1r5CeUqB85Q0GC9gO7JooR8mRwy9Q6maFH-xr7ONhspJqQb9fI5I3WrowPzCvaamm6zvZ7yqHlyjCw9dwlh0qOZP1mTl_d0/s1600/civil+war+quotes.jpg "Civil War Quotes 1864-1865 “War is simply power restrained by the constitution or compact” –Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “Lee’s army will be your objective point. Wherever Lee goes, there you will go also.” -Gen. Ulysses S. Grant “If victorious, we have everything to live for. If defeated, there will be nothing to live for.” –Gen. Robert E. Lee “Face the fire and go in where it is hottest.” –Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill “Scarce we had moved a step, when Gen. Lee, in front of the whole command, raised himself in his stirrups, uncovered his grey hairs, and with an earnest, yet anxious voice, exclaimed above the din and confusion of the hour, “Texans always move them.”… Never before in my lifetime or since, did I ever witness such a scene as was enacted when Lee pronounced these words, with the appealing look he gave. A yell rent the air that must have been heard for miles around, and but few eyes in that old brigade of veterans and heroes of many a bloody field was undimmed by honest, heartfelt tears. [The man next to me,] with tears coursing down his cheeks and yells issuing from his throat exclaimed, ‘I would charge hell itself for that old man.’” –Pvt. Robert Campell, 5 th Texas Infantry “I am heartily tired of hearing about what Lee is going to do. Some of you always seem to think he is suddenly going to turn a double somersault, and land in our rear and on both of our flanks at the same time. Go back to your command, and try to think what we are going to do ourselves, instead of what Lee is going to do.” –Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at the battle of the Wilderness “I saw two hundred wagons crowded with wounded men. The dark spot in the mud told all too plainly where some poor fellow’s life had dripped out in those dreadful hours. While our soldiers fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them. My place is anywhere between the bullet and the battlefield.” –Clara Barton “Grant’s military standing with the enlisted men this day hung on the direction we turned at the Chancellorsville House. If to the left, he was to be rated with Meade and Hooker and Burnside and Popethe generals who preceded him….[W]e turned to the right. Instantly all of us heard a sigh of relief. Our spirits rose. We marched freely. The men began to sing. The enlisted men understood the flanking movement. That night we were happy.” –Pvt. Frank Wilkenson “Go back! Go back! And do your duty, as I have done mine, and our country will be safe. Go back! Go back! I had rather die than be whipped.” –Gen. J.E.B. Stuart at Yellow Tavern “I will not take my regiment in another such charge if Jesus Christ himself should order it!” –Union Capt. Thomas E. Baker“Follow Forrest to the death if it cost ten thousand lives and breaks the [Federal] treasury. There will be no peace in Tennessee till Forrest is dead.” –Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “I steadily believe that Grant is going to succeed, and that we shall have Richmond-but oh what a price to pay for it!” –Walt Whitman “This war is eating my life out. I have a strong impression that I shall not live to see the end.” –Abraham Lincoln “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!” –Adm. David Glasgow Farragut at Mobile Bay “If slaves make good soldiers, our whole theory of slavery is wrong.” –Gen. Howell Cobb “This morning, as for some time past, it seems exceedingly probable that this administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.” –Abraham Lincoln “If the North can march and army right through the South, it is proof positive that the North can prevail….I will not attempt to send couriers back, but trust to the Richmond papers to keep you well advised. I can make this march and make Georgia howl!” –Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “The truth is, the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina. I almost tremble at her fate, but feel that she deserves all that seems to be in store for her.” – Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “I begin to present to you, as a Christmas gift, the city of Savannah.” –Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman “I want Sheridan put in command of all the troops in the field with instructions to put himself south of the enemy and follow him to the death.” –Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant “Reduction to poverty brings prayers for peace more surely and more quickly than does the destruction of human life.” –Gen. Phillip H. Sheridan “Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” –Abraham Lincoln, Nov 21, 1864, to Lydia Bixby, a widow who supposedly lost five sons in the war, some doubt Lincoln wrote the letter.“Both sides read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged.” –Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 “I mean to end this business here.” Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Petersburg, March 1865 “The war is over. The rebels are our countrymen again.” –Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, April 9, 1865 “Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood, with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bonds. Was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a union so tested and assured?...We cannot look into those brave, bronzed faces and think of hate and personal mean revenge. Whoever had misled these men, we had not. We had led them back home.” –Union Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, at the surrender ceremonies at Appomattox. April 12, 1865.")