Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government

[475] That party itself has placed upon its back that shirt of Nessus which clings to it and stings it to death. I repeat, then, and I say it in confidence and vindication, in so far as regards my own belief, I say it in all good spirit toward multitudes of men in this Commonwealth of the Whig and American parties in their heretofore organization; I say it to multitudes of men who have been betrayed by the passions of the hour into joining the sectional combinations of the Republican party; I say that in the Democratic party and in that alone is the tower of strength for the liberties, the position, and the honor of the United States. But why need I indulge in these reflections in proof of my proposition? Gentlemen, we have here this evening the living proof, the visible, tangible, audible, incontestable, immortal proof, that the position of the Democratic party, in the existing organization of parties, is the national, constitutional party of the United States. Gentlemen, I ask you to challenge your memories, and look upon the history of the past four years of the United States, and can you point me to a Republican assembly here, in the city of Boston, or anywhere else; can you point me in the last four years of our history to any occasion on which Faneuil Hall has been crowded to its utmost capability with a Republican assembly in which appeared any one of those preeminent statesmen of the Southern States to honor not merely their States, but these United States? When, sir, did that ever happen? When, sir, was that a possible fact, morally speaking, that any eminent Southern statesman appeared in a Republican assembly in any one of the States of this Union? There never was a Republican assembly—an assembly of the Republican party in fifteen of these States—and I again ask, when, in the remaining sixteen States, was there ever convened an assembly of the Republican party which, by reason of bigotry, proscriptive bigotry, of unnational hatred of the South, and of determined insult of all Southern statesmen, did not render it an impossible fact that any Southern statesman should thus make his appearance as a member in such Republican Convention? You know it is so, gentlemen; and yet, have we not a common country? Did those thirteen colonies which, commencing with that combat at Concord, and following it with that battle at Bunker's Hill, and pursuing it in every battlefield of this continent, did those thirteen colonies form one country or thirteen countries? Nay, did they form two countries, or one country? I would imagine when I listen to a Republican speech here in the State of Massachusetts, when I read a Republican address in Massachusetts, I would imagine fifteen States of this Union—our fellow-citizens or fellow-sufferers, our fellow-heroes of the Revolution—I would imagine not that they are our countrymen endeared to us by ties of consanguinity, but that they are from some foreign country, that they belong to some French or British or Mexican enemies. There never was a day in which the forces of war were marshaled against the most flagrant abuses toward these United States; there never was a war in which these United States have been engaged, never even in the death-struggle of the Revolution, never in our war for maritime independence, never in our war with France and Mexico, never was there a time when any party in these United States expressed, avowed, proclaimed, ostentatiously proclaimed more intense hostility to the British, French, Mexican enemy, than I have heard uttered or proclaimed concerning our fellow-citizens— brothers in the fifteen States of this Union. It is the glory of the Democratic party that we can assume the burden of our nationality for the Union; that we can make