BUY Rebel Flags For Sale“Nothing fills me with deeper sadness than to see a Southern man apologizing for the defense we made of our inheritance. Our cause was so just, so sacred, that had I known all that has come to pass, had I known what was to be inflicted upon me, all that my country was to suffer, all that our posterity was to endure, I would do it all over again.”
— attributed to President Jefferson Davis
About the Quote
The first sentence of this quote comes from Davis’s own correspondence after the war, where he wrote of his sadness at seeing a Southern man apologize for the defense of their inheritance and deny the truths on which their institutions were founded. The second part, beginning “Our cause was so just, so sacred,” is widely shared with it, but its original source remains unconfirmed by historians.
Davis Never Apologized
After the war, Jefferson Davis was imprisoned at Fort Monroe, Virginia, for two years. He was never brought to trial, though he wanted one so he could defend the South’s right to secede in court. Unlike many former Confederate leaders, Davis never asked for a pardon. He believed that doing so would admit that the South had been wrong, and he refused to the end of his life.
In 1881, he published The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, a two-volume work defending the Southern states’ right to govern themselves under the Constitution as they understood it.
Restored by Congress
Davis died in New Orleans in 1889 and was later buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Nearly 90 years after his death, in 1978, Congress restored his U.S. citizenship, and President Jimmy Carter signed the measure, saying it was time to put the bitterness of the past behind the nation.
Read more about President Davis in Beauvoir: The Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library, and browse our Confederate flag collection.
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Jefferson Davis was a wise man whose words speak to us today. If it was worth fighting then, it’s,worth fighting now. No one should be ashamed of being Southern. We put up a brave & gallant fight. The fight continues.
With overwhelming manpower and gun power, it still took the North 4 years to capture the Confederate capital of Richmond, VA…a mere 100 miles from DC.
That fact alone, speaks volumes about the dogged tenacity of Southerners to resist the illegal invasion of their homeland by the Union forces.
I could not be more proud of our fallen Southern heroes!
This is very true. There is a great deal of discussion about some of the larger issues of the war, but very little conversation about the fact that for many, it was a matter of their family, friends neighbors and communities. Do I side with those who may want to kill or destroy those I know? Or do I act to protect them? R.E. Lee was a well-known example of this. He had decades of proud service to the United States Army, but ultimately he saw his duty as first to his State of Virginia. In a letter to a friend, Lee wrote:
“If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.”
In a letter to his wife we can see how he struggled over it. In the end, he said, he could not bring himself to raise his weapons against his family and neighbors.
So very true. These men were fighting for their family and neighbors, regardless of the big political issues of the day.
I do not consider myself nor my ancestors who actually raised arms against the invading North Traders.
Not turning against your brothers,friends, neighbors,& family to defend your state is neither treasonable nor rebellious.