Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

[481] an oppressive tax upon your Commonwealth. Such was the proud spirit of independence manifested even in your colonial history. Such is the great foundation-stone on which may be erected an eternal monument of State rights. And so, in an early period of our country, you find Massachusetts leading the movements, prominent of all the States, in the assertion of that doctrine which has been recently so much belied. Having achieved your independence, having passed through the Confederation, you assented to the formation of our present constitutional Union. You did not surrender your sovereignty. Your fathers had sacrificed too much to claim, as a reward of their toil, merely that they should have a change of masters; and a change of masters it would have been had Massachusetts surrendered her State sovereignty to the central Government, and consented that that central Government should have the power to coerce a State. But, if this power does not exist, if this sovereignty has not been surrendered, then, who can deny the words of soberness and truth spoken by your candidate this evening, when he has pleaded to you the cause of State independence, and the right of every community to be judge of its own domestic affairs? This is all we have ever asked—we of the South, I mean—for I stand before you as one of those who have always been called the ultra men of the South, and I speak, therefore, for that class; and I tell you that your candidate for Governor has uttered to-night everything which we have claimed as a principle for our protection. And I have found the same condition of things in the neighboring State of Maine. I have found that the Democrats there asserted the same broad constitutional principle for which we have been contending, by which we are willing to live, for which we are willing to die!

In this state of the case, my friends, why is the country agitated? The old controversies have passed away, or they have subsided, and have been covered up by one dark pall of somber hue, which increases with every passing year. Why is it, then, I say, that you are thus agitated in relation to the domestic affairs of other communities? Why is it that the peace of the country is disturbed in order that one people may judge of what another people may do? Is there any political power to authorize such interference? If so, where is it? You did not surrender your sovereignty. You gave to the Federal Government certain functions. It was your agent, created for specified purposes. It can do nothing save that which you have given it power to perform. Where is the grant? Has it a right to determine what shall be property? Surely not; that belongs to every community to decide for itself; you judge in your case—every other State must judge in its case. The Federal Government has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes, then, to an agent, that he may destroy your property? Do you support him for that purpose? It is an absurdity on the face of it. To ask the question is to answer it. The Government is instituted to protect, not to destroy, property. And, in abundance of caution, your fathers provided that the Federal Government should not take private property for its own use unless by making due compensation therefor. It is prohibited from attempting to destroy property. One of its great purposes was protection to the States. Whenever that power is made a source of danger, we destroy the purpose for which the Government was formed.

Why, then, have you agitators? With Pharisaical pretension it is sometimes said it is a moral obligation to agitate, and I suppose they are going through a sort of vicarious repentance for other men's sins. With all due allowance for