The following is Davis' speech:
Davis, Jefferson - Speech Before (a joint session of) the Mississippi
Legislature in Jackson, Mississippi - 10 March 1884
FRIENDS AND BRETHREN OF MISSISSIPPI: In briefest terms, but with deepest feeling,
permit me to return my thanks for the unexpected honor you have conferred on
me. ...
We
are now in a transition state, which is always a bad one, both in society and
in nature. What is to be the result of
the changes which may be anticipated it is not possible to forecast, but our
people have shown such fortitude and have risen so grandly from the deep
depression inflicted upon them, that it is fair to entertain bright hopes for
the future. Sectional hate concentrating
itself upon my devoted head, deprives me of the privileges accorded to others
in the sweeping expression of "without distinction of race, color or
previous condition," but it cannot deprive me of that which is nearest and
dearest to my heart, the right to be a Mississippian and it is with great
gratification that I received this emphatic recognition of that right by the
representatives of our people. Reared on
the soil of Mississippi, the ambition of my boyhood was to do something which
would redound to the honor and welfare of the State. The weight of many years admonishes me that
my day for actual service has passed, yet the desire remains undiminished to
see the people of Mississippi prosperous and happy and her fame not unlike the
past, but gradually growing wider and brighter as years roll away.
'Tis
been said that I should apply to the United States for a pardon, but repentance
must precede the right of pardon, and I have not repented. Remembering as I must all which has been
suffered, all which has been lost, disappointed hopes and crushed aspirations,
yet I deliberately say, if it were to do over again, I would again do just as I
did in 1861. No one is the arbiter of
his own fate. The people of the
Confederate States did more in proportion to their numbers and means than was
ever achieved by any in the world's history.
Fate decreed that they should be unsuccessful in the effort to maintain
their claim to resume the grants made to the Federal Government. Our people have accepted the decree; it therefore
behooves them, as they may, to promote the general welfare of the Union to show
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 oceanbound domain. Let them leave to their children and
children's children the grand 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. But never question
or teach your children to desecrate the memory of the dead by admitting that
their brothers were wrong in the effort to maintain the sovereignty, freedom
and independence which was their inalienable birthright. (R)emembering that the coming generations are
the children of the heroic mothers whose devotion to our cause in its darkest
hour sustained the strong and strengthened the weak, I cannot believe that the
cause for which our sacrifices were made can ever be lost, but rather hope that
those who now deny the justice of our asserted claims will learn from experience
that the fathers builded wisely and the Constitution should be constructed
according to the commentaries of the men who made it.
It
having been previously understood that I would not attempt to do more than to
return my thanks, which are far deeper than it would be possible for me to
express, I will now, Senators and Representatives, and to you ladies and
gentlemen, who have honored me by your attendance, bid you an affectionate, and
it may be, a last farewell.
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| Confederate Honor Guard Answering to Roll Call of Confederate Dead |
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| Tyrone Crowley Presenting Jefferson Davis' Speech to the Mississippi Legislature |
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| UDC and SCV Participants in Memorial Service at Confederate Rest Cemetery |
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