Democracy in America

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835) Democracy in America This article was written in 1835, by Alexis De Tocqueville. He was from a prominent family of nobility. He also was a member of parliament where he defended abolitionist views and upheld free trade. He was a sort of world traveler. He traveled to Algeria, England, and various other countries. He criticized the French model of colonization, and preferred the British model of direct rule. After he got his law degree he was named auditor-magistrate at the court of Versailles. While there he met Gustave de Beaumont, and they were both sent to America to study the penitentiary system. After returning from the trip Tocqueville became a lawyer and wrote his master work, “Democracy in America”. • Main Points: • Democratic Government is basically the same thing as the majority. • 2. The majority is always right. Like the King could do no wrong and passed blame to advisors, so does the majority blame everyone but themselves.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835) Main Points: 3. The majority can misuse power if not within boundary of moral and physical authority. This means the majority of the people having more intelligence. He says that quantity is more important than quality. 4. Branches of government exist, but they are not really effective. Tocqueville has his own idea. “ If, on the other hand, a legislative power could be o constituted as t represent the majority without necessarily being the slave of its passions; an executive so as to retain a certain degree of uncontrolled authority; and a judiciary, so as to remain independent of the two other powers; a government would be formed which would still be democratic, without incurring any risk of tyrannical abuse.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835) Main Points: 5. People can have their own opinion, but the majority will make the decision if it is within bounds. They will make the decisions on the basis of the moral and physical authority. The majority would rule, because who would want to be the outsider. 6. Lawyers are the only ones to make sure the majority stays within he moral and physical boundaries. He compares lawyers to the aristocracy. This is because they are the highest educated, and in the highest circle of society. He says they have nothing to gain because they have it all. 7. The passions of the people make the democracy. The people are proud of their opinions, material things, monetary gain, and mainly physical prosperity. In America they valued these things more than political actions. The main mean of the passions is value what is right. This article was intended as his master work, and for anyone to view in France or abroad. This article was important because it explained American democracy to any reader the way it was then and they way it is now. The main points of the article are still as important as ever.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance (1841) Main Points I. Independence of thought AND ACTION REGARDLESS OF SOCIETY’S REACTION. II. Existence of an inner divine force to give direction. III. Divine force supplies revelation of truth and beauty.

Quotes from Emerson’s Self-Reliance: • …To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart, is true for all men,--that is genius. • A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thought: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. • Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. • Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. • Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. • I shun father and mother and wife and brother, when my genius calls me. • What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

Do your thing, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blind-man-bluff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument. p. • For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure. • A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. • To be great is to be misunderstood. • The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks…. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. • The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God spaketh, he should communicate not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole.

…in the universal miracle petty and particular miracles disappear. • Man is timid and apologetic. He is no longer upright. He dares not say “I think,” “I am,” but quotes some saint or sage. • …man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time…. • Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state…. • He who has more soul than I, masters me, though he should not raise his finger. • I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. • …you isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views. • Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end, is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. • The soul is no traveler: the wise man stays at home…. • Insist on yourself; never imitate. • Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. • The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. • Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. • And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. • Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

Ralph Waldo EmersonThe Young American Marlea Key

Ralph Waldo Emerson1803-1882 • Born in Boston • Son of a Minister • Studied at Harvard • Transcendentalist • Individualist that rejected traditional authority • Poet • One of the greatest orators

The Young American • A lecture that Emerson read before the Mercantile Library Association in Boston on February 7, 1844. • He claims that America wanted everything “British,” and that Americans can start making their own history. • He stresses that it is great to be an American and that everyone should start acting like one and be proud of it.

Main Points • “It is remarkable, that our people have their intellectual culture from one country, and their duties from another… This false state of things is newly in a way to be corrected. America is beginning to assert itself to the senses and to the imagination of her children, and Europe is receding in the same degree.” - America needs to make its own history and stop living in the shadows of Britain. He is stressing that everyone needs to act “American,” be proud of it, and pass it on for generations to come. • “An unlooked for consequence of the railroad, is the increased acquaintance it has given the American people with the boundless resources of their ownsoil.” - The building of the railroad benefits Americans by contracting time and space. It facilitates transportation and travel, benefits commerce, creates wealth, and binds Americans together as a common people.

Main Points Continued • “Commerce, is the political fact of most significance to the American at this hour…” • “The history of commerce… is the record of this beneficent tendency… Trade, a plant which grows wherever there is peace, as soon as there is peace, and as long as there is peace.” • “We plant trees, we build stone houses, we redeem the waste, we make prospective laws, we found colleges and hospitals, for remote generations. We should be mortified to learn that the little benefit we chanced in our own persons to receive was the utmost they would yield.” - Commerce will build America’s wealth by exploiting her many riches. It also forms American character by placing everything into the competitive market place: “talent, beauty, virtue, and man himself…”

Main Points Continued • “Gentlemen, the development of our American internal resources, the extension to the utmost of the commercial system, and the appearance of new moral causes which are to modify the state, are giving an aspect of greatness to the Future, which the imagination fears to open.” -These (commerce, railroad & trade) are the elements that will make America “great” in the future, and allow Americans to make their own history rather than living in the shadow of Britain’s history.

Historical Significance • Emerson directed this speech to all Americans, in hopes that it would make them see what a bright future it held. • Emerson also wanted his audiences to see that America has no history and they can make the history for themselves.

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1848)

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1848) IT IS MAN’S DUTY TO WASH HIS HAND OF WRONG. It is not man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any…wrong; he may still properly have other concern to engage him; but it is his duty at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him fist, that he may pursue his contemplations too. (p. 51.) DEMOCRACY SOMETIMES PREVENTS PEOPLE FROM DOING THE RIGHT THING. In a democracy, there are unjust laws, but people “think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them.” (p. 52.)

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1848) ANY MAN MORE RIGHT THAN HIS NEIGHBORS CONSTITUTES A MAJORITY BECAUSE HE HAS GOD ON HIS SIDE, AND HE SHOULD ACT IMMEDIATELY TO WASH HIS HAND OF WRONG. If a government is maintaining unjust laws, people should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government. They should “not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already.” (p. 52) ONE HONEST MAN CAN CHANGE THE STATE. For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever. But we love better to talk about it: that we say is our mission. (p. 52) “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison…. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.” (p. 52)

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1848) “A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight.” (p. 52) IT IS GOOD TO BE A MARTYR RATHER THAN A SINNER. Suppose blood should flow when standing up to the government or the majority in refusal to consent to unjust laws. “Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death.” (p. 52) THE STATE SHOULD HAVE TRUE RESPECT FOR THE INDIVIDUAL. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual…. There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imaging a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men.” (p. 52)

The Mexican View of the War(1850)Ramon Alvarez Et Al.

Leading up to the War • Manifest Destiny • Written by John O’Sullivan • The belief that God intended for the United States to spread its political power over the entire continent. • Mexico • Just Emancipated from Spain • Weak from several revolutions

Questions to Consider • What, in the Mexican editor’s view, caused the war with the United States? • Did they see a pattern in U.S. history? • Was Mexico entirely blameless?

Main Points • Mexico blames the War on the United States. • “To explain then in a few words the true origin of the war, it is sufficient to say that the insatiable ambition of the United States, favored by our weakness, caused it.” • United States an “Alpha Male” • “In throwing off the yoke of the mother country, the United States of the North appeared at once as a powerful nation.” • United States had an Expansion Plan. • “From the days of their independence they adopted the project of extending their dominions, and since then , that line of policy has not deviated in the slightest degree… They desired from the beginning to extend their dominion in such a manner as to become the absolute owners of most of all this continent.” • Even after acquiring the land that the U.S. wanted all along, the U.S. felt to add insult by placing fault on Mexico. • “Violence and insult were united: thus at the very time they usurped part of our territory, they offered to us the hand of treachery, to have soon the audacity to say that our obstinacy and arrogance were the real causes of the war…”

Historical Significance • The United States gained what they believed was God’s will. • The article gave light to how the Mexicans’ felt about the war. • Allowed Americans to see the other side of the war.

Questions • Was it always the goal of the United States to take over part of Mexico? • If the United States had not taken over part of Mexico, what would the country be like today?

John O'Sullivan, Manifest Destiny (1845) Main Points It is God's will that the United States spread to dominate the entire continent. "...the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent alloted to us by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions" There should be no more discussion about the annexation of Texas. "It is time now for opposition to the Annexation of Texas to cease, all further agitation of the waters of bitterness and strife, at least in connexion with this question...It is time for the common duty of Patriotism to the Country to succeed; or if this claim will not be recognized, it is at least time for common sense to acquiesce with decent grace in the inevitable and the irrevocable." The Congress of Texas has already voted to join the union, therefore she is already part of America. "her convention has undoubtedly ratified the acceptance, by her Congress, of our proffered invitation into the Union" "Her star and her stripe may already be said to have taken their place in the glorious blazon of our common nationality"

John O'Sullivan, Manifest Destiny (1845) Main Points The Mexican government has no claim to Texas because Texas was colonized by Americans and Texas has already won indepedence from Mexico. "If Texas became peopled with an American population, it was by no contrivance of our government, but on the express invitation of that of Mexico herself" "She was released, rightfully and absolutely released, from all Mexican allegiance...by the acts and faults of Mexico herself." The annexation of Texas and other Western areas is not a pro-slavery movement, in fact it will serve to ease the transition to the abolishment of slavery. --Texas offers an outlet for black migration towards a more racially diverse Mexico, aiding in the disappearance of the race from America after the abolishment of slavery. "it is undeniably much gained for the cause of the eventual voluntary abolition of slavery, that it should have been thus drained off towards the only outlet which appeared to furnish much probability of it the ultimate disappearance of the negro race from our borders"

John O'Sullivan, Manifest Destiny (1845) Main Points The rapid population growth of America demands further expansion westward and along the whole line of the Northern border. "the general law which is rolling our population westward, the connexion of which with the ratio of growth in population which is destined within a hundred years to swell our numbers to the enormous population of two hundred and fifty millions(if not more)." Summation: In summation, Manifest Destiny became a rallying cry for the belief that is was the God given destiny of America to spread it's domain from the Atlantic in the East to the Pacific in the West and utilize every acre in between the two great oceans to it's full glorious potential.

George BancroftThe Progress of Mankind (1854)

Historical Context Father was a distinguished revolutionary soldier Entered Harvard at age thirteen, then studied abroad Was expected to join the ministry, but was unsuccessful Became a statesmen and historian Leaned towards romanticism and humanist beliefs Gained favor with Polk and became Secretary of the Navy Established the United States Naval Academy Was assigned the position of Minister to Britain and Prussia Was a supporter of Jacksonian Democracy Was prolific writer, including his book History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent

Main Points • Bancroft stresses the wisdom of the majority. “The many are wiser than the few; the multitude than the philosopher; the race than the individual; and each successive generation than its predecessor.” This relays the idea that majority is always right, and coincides with the Jacksonian ideal. • Addresses the role of the individual contributing to the whole consciousness saying “Common sense implies by its very name, that each individual is to contribute some share toward the general intelligence.” Bancroft suggests through the collective experiences of the past, the people understand what is best for all and constantly move forward. • Believes truth and morality to be universal and unchangeable, saying “The relation of good to evil is from the beginning, and is unalterable.”

Main Points (cont.) • States that Divine will constitutes progress…”and when any part of the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the ways of Providence vindicated,” which is his reference to a divine creator. • Last section addresses women and their role in nature as a “lily among thorns” to be “not man’s slave, but his companion.” Bancroft places women in an inferior role with subtle hints of the superiority of men. • In concluding his speech, he hopes that following generations will approach…”not only toward unity, but universality.” Meaning even more enlightenment and general consensus of good.

Historical Significance • This speech speaks for a career dedicated to justifying democracy • Bancroft’s ideas influenced many people, including the politicians which admired and awarded him with positions • As a historian, his volume of United States history helped put the nation’s past in a comprehensive framework

Questions to Consider • Does history ever demonstrate any retrograde motions? • Who or what is responsible for human progress? • What is the role of women in history?

What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (July 5,1852)Frederick DouglassMain Points:The Declaration of Independence did not positively affect the African-Americans.“Why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence?”“The Fourth of July is yours not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.”A giant black hole will always consist between the Whites and Blacks.“The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me.”Of all the things the Whites have done or celebrated, they are not worse than Fourth of July.“I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July.”The country was disillusioned to how they unjustly treated the African-Americans.“America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.” The Whites knew in their hearts that slavery was wrong.“There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong for him.”America is so blind when it considered itself as the top country.“There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practice more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”The 4th of July is a mockery to the black slave.“…a day that reveals to him, more that all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

Frederick Douglas My Bondage And My Slavery (1887)

Frederick Douglass: Background • Was born Frederick Augustus Bailey in February of 1818. • Son of a white father and Harriet Bailey (a slave of mixed African and American Indian descent. • Taught himself to read, write, and study oratory. • Escaped in 1838 at the age of 20. • Married Anna Murray, a free black woman. • Settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. • In 1841, gave his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. • Douglass wrote three autobiographical narratives: First: “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” (1845) Published seven years after his escape. Second: “My Bondage and My Freedom” (1855) Written after he had established himself as a newspaper editor. Third: “Life and Times of Frederick Douglass” (1881). • Married his second wife Helen Pitts, a white woman because during this time there were not many black women.

Frederick Douglass: Historical Context • Ex-slave who fought for the freedom of all slaves. • He wanted to let America know how it felt not to have a true “family” or “father”. • Douglass felt that “Slaveholders are only a band of successful robbers.” (Quote taken from, “Slavery in America from Colonial Times to the Civil War”) • Slavery was wrong as well as the treatment of them. • The early to mid eighteen hundreds in the South was extremely harsh on slaves. • Slaves didn’t really belong to a family, they belong to their master’s like cattle, land, or crops. • Douglass wanted to open America’s eyes because they had been closed far too long.

“My Bondage and My Freedom”: Main Points Slavery makes families dysfunctional. • “ … My poor mother, like many other slave-women, had many children, but NO FAMILY!” (68) • “The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting …” (68) • “Women—white women, I mean—are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these idols but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victims: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow.” (69) • It has been noted throughout history that there was and maybe even today been “Southern Bells”. Why did we never hear of a “Northern Bell”. That seems to be term used only to describe the southern women of the south.

“My Bondage and My Freedom”: Main Points (cont.) Even black individuals who are half-white, they are often considered to be simply black slaves. • “He may be a freeman; and yet his child may be a chattel [movable property: an item of personal property that is not freehold land and is not intangible.]. He may be white, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood; and his child may be ranked with the blackest slaves.” (69) Many white masters did not acknowledge their mulatto children. • “Men do not love those who remind them of their sins unless they have a mind to repent—and the mulatto child’s face is a standing accusation against him who is master and father to the child.” (69) • They would many times repent for their sins by selling the mulatto child. In this way, they didn’t have to see them and be reminded; a case of out of sight out of mind. • It may be important to point out that not all slave owners engaged in a sexual relationship with their slaves.

“My Bondage and My Freedom” :Main Points: (cont.) White slave owners wanted to keep their black slaves ignorant to better insure their control over their slaves. • “The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible … awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused my desire to learn.” (69) • “he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it.” (68) • “it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave…” (69) • “His iron sentences–cold and harsh—sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought.” (69) • “the white man’s power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black man … knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.” (69)

Historical Significance: • The document had a great impact on society because it publicized America’s ugly secret. • The groups within society which appeared to be impacted the most by the author’s document was the slave owners. After all, who had the most to loose. • Because slavery was wrong, Douglass vowed to speak out so others would know by writing and giving speaches.

Frederick Douglass: Questions to Consider: • What is the importance for Douglass of his opening observation that slaves lack a family history? • Why were slave owners so terrified by the idea of an education?

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl • Main Points • Slavery was harmful to the stability and structure of many Southern families, and therefore destabilized the Southern society and culture as a whole. • Slaves were thought to be property disregarded as a person with no emotions or thought, even the life of a child could escape the oppression of slavery. • “He told me I was his property; that I must be subject to his will in all things. My soul revolted against the mean tyranny.” • Slavery damaged family values. • The white children were brought up to think slavery was right but saw the tensions that it caused within their family. • The white women took their frustration out on the slave girl because they were more vulnerable to attack than their husbands were. • “The mistress, who ought to protect the helpless victim, has no other feelings toward her but those of jealousy and rage.”

Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897), Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl • The master would go to the slave girl for his guilty pleasure because she would be at his disposal. • “My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belong to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him.” • Southern women knew that their men had fathered slave children and saw them as property. • “…Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the father of many little slaves. They do not trouble themselves about it. They regard such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation…”

Alexander Stephens • Slavery and the Confederacy • Alexander Stephens (1812-1883) • born February 11, 1812 near Crawfordsville, Georgia • was orphaned and penniless at age 15 • with the help of friends and by working, he graduated from the University of Georgia at Athens in 1832 • studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1834 • joined Whig party and became a member of the Georgia State House of Representatives from 1836-42 • elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1843 and served until 1858 • later, he served as Vice President of the Confederate States • he originally opposed Georgia’s secession • after Georgia’s secession, he became an advocate for the cause • This speech was delivered on March 21, 1861 in Savannah, Georgia.

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy • Main Points • 1. “No citizen is deprived of life, liberty, or property, but by the judgment of his peers, under the laws of the land. The great principle of religious liberty, which was the honor and pride of the old Constitution, is still maintained and secured. All the essentials of the old Constitution, which have endeared it to the hearts of the American people, have been preserved and perpetuated.” • This statement ensures that each “citizen” will be afforded the rights and freedoms they are presently accustomed to. • 2. “We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged in.” • “The true principle is to subject commerce of every locality to whatever burdens may be necessary to facilitate it….This is again the broad principle of perfect equality and justice.” • Under the Confederate Constitution, excess taxes and tariffs of every industry will be repealed or distributed equally. • Local and business monies should be used to repair or improve local infrastructure instead of the National Treasury.

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy • Main Points • 3. “The new Constitution has put to rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.” • “Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition. This, our new Government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.” • The institution of slavery is at the heart of the revolution. • By not being equal, Africans must be subordinate to whites, and this is the first Government to recognize and follow this truth

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy • Main Points • 4. “Many Governments have been founded upon the principles of certain classes; but the classes thus enslaved, were of the same race, and in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. The negro by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.” • “It is, indeed, in conformity with the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances or to question them. For His own purposes He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made ‘one star to differ from another in glory’”. • As long as slaves are from the African race, then it conforms with the laws of God and nature. • It is God’s divine wisdom why there is a difference between races, and that wisdom should not be questioned. • “Our object is Peace, not only with the North, but with the world…. Rumors are afloat, however, that it is the result of necessity. All I can say to you, therefore, on that point is, keep your armor bright, and your powder dry.” • The Confederacy wants to secede peacefully, but just in case, be prepared for a fight.

Alexander Stephens Slavery and the Confederacy • Main Points • “….notwithstanding their (the Union) professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor…. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after—though they come from the labor of the slave. • Through the taxes and tariffs collected from South, the Federal Treasury enriches itself by the use of slave labor.

Democracy in America