Top 40 Jefferson Davis Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Truth crushed to earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again.”

— Jefferson Davis

2. “The past is dead; let it bury its dead, its hopes and its aspirations; before you lies the future-a future full of golden promise.”

— Jefferson Davis

3. “A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever.”

— Jefferson Davis

4. “African slavery, as it exists in the United States, is a moral, a social, and a political blessing.”

— Jefferson Davis

5. “The Slave must be made fit for his freedom by education and discipline, and thus made unfit for slavery. And as soon as he becomes unfit for slavery, the master will no longer desire to hold him as a slave.”

— Jefferson Davis

6. “Vicksburg is the nail head that holds the South’s two halves together.”

— Jefferson Davis

7. “Be not haughty with the humble; be not humble with the haughty.”

— Jefferson Davis

8. “I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent the war, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came.”

— Jefferson Davis

9. “It is not differences of opinion; it is geographical lines, rivers, and mountains which divide State from State, and make different nations of mankind.”

— Jefferson Davis

10. “All we ask is to be let alone.”

— Jefferson Davis

11. “Let men not ask what the law requires, but give whatever freedom demands.”

— Jefferson Davis

12. “Our government is an agency of delegated and strictly limited powers. Its founders did not look to its preservation by force; but the chain they wove to bind these States together was one of love and mutual good offices...”

— Jefferson Davis

13. “The troops of other states have their reputation to gain, the sons of the Alamo have theirs to maintain.”

— Jefferson Davis

14. “Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southerner apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance.”

— Jefferson Davis

15. “The principle for which we contend is bound to reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form.”

— Jefferson Davis

16. “Truthfulness is a cornerstone in character, and if it be not firmly laid in youth, there will ever after be a weak spot in the foundation.”

— Jefferson Davis

17. “Neither current events nor history show that the majority rule, or ever did rule.”

— Jefferson Davis

18. “The time for compromise has now passed, and the South is determined to maintain her position, and make all who oppose her smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel.”

— Jefferson Davis

19. “Tradition usually rests upon something which men did know; history is often the manufacture of the mere liar.”

— Jefferson Davis

20. “It was one of the compromises of the Constitution that the slave property in the Southern States should be recognized as property throughout the United States.”

— Jefferson Davis

21. “At Rest An American Soldier And Defender of the Constitution.”

— Jefferson Davis

22. “Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice, and sustained by a virtuous people .”

— Jefferson Davis

23. “If you will not have it thus: if in the pride of power, if in contempt of reason and reliance upon force, you say we shall not go, but shall remain as subjects to you, then, gentlemen of the North, a war is to be inaugurated the like of which men have not seen...”

— Jefferson Davis

24. “It is our duty to keep the memory of our heroes green. Yet they belong to the whole country; they belong to America.”

— Jefferson Davis

25. “Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles and thorns innumerable.”

— Jefferson Davis

26. “If slavery be a sin, it is not yours. It does not rest on your action for its origin, on your consent for its existence. It is a common law right to property in the service of man; its origin was Divine decree.”

— Jefferson Davis

27. “Lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to make your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished – a reunited country.”

— Jefferson Davis

28. “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.”

— Jefferson Davis

29. “The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered upon a new and enlarged arena.”

— Jefferson Davis

30. “It is a duty we owe to posterity to see that our children shall know the virtues, and rise worthy of their sires.”

— Jefferson Davis

31. “Pray excuse me. I cannot take it.”

— Jefferson Davis

32. “For an enemy so relentless in the war for our subjugation, we could not be expected to mourn; yet, in view of its political consequences, it could not be regarded otherwise than as a great misfortune for the South.”

— Jefferson Davis

33. “God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union.”

— Jefferson Davis

34. “If the Confederacy fails, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a Theory.”

— Jefferson Davis

35. “Our armies were in as much chaos in victory as theirs in defeat.”

— Jefferson Davis

36. “A restitution of the Union has been rendered forever impossible.”

— Jefferson Davis

37. “Butler is branded a felon, an outlaw, an enemy of Mankind, and so ordered that in the event of his capture, the officer in command of the capturing force do cause him to be immediately executed by hanging.”

— Jefferson Davis

38. “We protest solemnly in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor.”

— Jefferson Davis

39. “The past is dead; let it bury it’s dead, its hopes and aspirations; before you lies the future. Let me beseech you to lay aside all rancor, all bitter sectional feeling, and to take your places in the ranks of those who will bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished – a reunited country.”

— Jefferson Davis

40. “The authors of all our misfortune.”

— Jefferson Davis

41. “How idle is this prating about natural rights as though still containing all that had been forfeited.”

— Jefferson Davis