An Address To The Citizens Of Alabama On The Constitution And Laws Of The Confederate States Of America Classic Reprint PDF Download

Excerpt from The Constitution of the Confederate States, Montgomery, 1861 Address But I do mean to say that the idea is dimly pressing itself upon the Northern mind, that we tried to avoid war, did not want war, but that war was brought on, waged and continued for the purpose of keeping a faction in power, and enabling the controllers of the faction to make a profit out of it. It was not a patriotic war to preserve the Union, but a contractors' war to secure the men in power, permanent control in Government. Pensions and Bounties are the degrading consequences of the mercenary motives which brought it on. It was a war of aggression, of conquest, and of plunder, on the one side, and a war of defence of home, of family, and of liberty, on the other. And victory has been the source of unutterable evils to them, while defeat has developed enormous good in character and in conduct, with us. Discussing this interesting relation of the Confederate cause to Northern sentiment, the other day with a Northern man, he said, "you know all men are willing to throw flowers over the corpse," "yes," said I "but over the corpse of the good, the pure, not the cause of the vile and the low." Men will not do honor to that which they despise. The reason why the Confederates arc respected, as I understand it, is that honorable and high minded men and women respect those who possess the same qualities, and as the high ideals and noble conduct of the Confederates is more and more understood, they will attract the admiration, the love and the respect of all noble people. I yield to no one in my estimation of the genius, the courage and the valor of the great Confederate Soldiers, the greatest the English race has ever produced. England has brought forth Marlboro and Wellington, Lawrence and Wolseley, at different times, and during different epochs, but there never has been an hour, a day, a year, from Hastings to Tel-El-Kebir, when she could show at the same time, such a roll of illustrious Soldiers as Lee, Johnston, Beauregard, Jackson, Stuart, Albert Sidney Johnston, Hampton, Wheeler and Fitz Lee. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.