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

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

All we ask is to be let alone.

Without doing injustice to the living, it may safely be asserted that our loss is irreparable; and that among the shining hosts of the great and good who now cluster around the banner of the country, there exists no purer spirit, no more heroic soul, than that of the illustrious man whose death I join you in lamenting.

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

My own convictions as to negro slavery are strong. It has its evils and abuses...We recognize the negro as God and God's Book and God's Laws, in nature, tell us to recognize him - our inferior, fitted expressly for servitude...You cannot transform the negro into anything one-tenth as useful or as good as what slavery enables them to be.

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