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

The contest is not over, the strife is not ended. It has only entered on a new and enlarged arena.

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

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.

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

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.

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.