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"Our present political position has been achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established. [...] Thus the sovereign States here represented have proceeded to form this Confederacy; and it is by abuse of language that their act has been denominated a revolution. They formed a new alliance, but within each State its government has remained; so that the rights of person and property have not been disturbed."

Davis claims the Declaration of Independence for the slaveholding republic in his first breath as president: secession as the American idea fulfilled, not betrayed. Then he insists that founding a nation is not a revolution — and that "the rights of person and property have not been disturbed," in a speech founding a government whose property is people. Avalon's text derives from Richardson's 1905 compilation; it reads "rest on the consent" where the Papers of Jefferson Davis reads "rest upon." Non-contiguous passages joined with [...].

Read it in the original — Inaugural Address, Montgomery, Feb 18, 1861 ↗

Next post: New Orleans Daily Crescent, Feb 21, 1861 →

"If any one can read the speeches which Mr. Lincoln has made on his recent trip to Washington City without a feeling of intense disgust, we envy him not his disposition. [...] Instead of rising to the dignity of a President, he has fallen to the level of a stump orator, addressing, for temporary effect, a miscellaneous assemblage of the populace. [...] Compare the Indianapolis speech of Lincoln with the inaugural address of President Davis, and how great the contrast! [...] In nothing is the difference between Northern and Southern sentiment and morality better illustrated than in these two addresses."

The Deep-South fire-eater press reading the two presidents side by side, three days after Davis's inaugural — it explicitly asks the reader to "compare the Indianapolis speech of Lincoln with the inaugural address of President Davis" (se-035). Lincoln is not yet in office; he is on the inaugural train, and the Crescent's charge is that he is undignified and does not understand state sovereignty. Non-contiguous sentences from the one editorial joined with [...].

Read it in the original — Daily Crescent, Feb 21, 1861 ↗