Senator Jefferson Davis
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Place Created: Washington, D.C.
Year Created: 1861
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On January 21, 1861, in a scene of high drama, Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis and four southern colleagues rose on the Senate floor to offer final remarks before withdrawing from the body and returning home to their states.
Officials from the South had long supported states’ rights as a bulwark against the central government. During the previous decades, southern senators had frequently used the threat of secession to encourage northern states to compromise on such issues as the spread of slavery into new territories. Believing that the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency threatened the institution of slavery and that there was no longer any hope of compromise, southern states began to act on the principle they had so often espoused—that states were sovereign bodies that had a right to withdraw from the Union or nullify offensive acts of Congress. South Carolina was the first state to secede in December 1860, followed in early January by Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama. On January 21, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas were still in the Union but seceded later in January and early February. Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee seceded in the spring of 1861 after the fall of Fort Sumter.
At the age of fifty-two, Jefferson Davis already had behind him a distinguished career in public service. Following graduation from West Point, he served in the army on the northwestern frontier for several years before returning to Mississippi as a planter. After a year in the House of Representatives in the 1840s, he commanded a regiment in the Mexican War. He served four years in the Senate as a Democrat from 1847 to 1851, then entered the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce as secretary of war. He returned to the Senate in 1857. Long a defender of slavery, Davis supported Mississippi’s decision to secede, as well as the plans to form a confederation of the states that had left the Union. He hoped this could occur peacefully but was prepared for war if necessary.
Although ill with severe headaches, Davis returned one final time to the Senate floor to bid farewell to his colleagues there before leaving Washington. As news spread that several southern senators would be making a last appearance, spectators filled not only the galleries but also the corridors outside the chamber. Davis’ wife Varina watched anxiously from the gallery. One by one, the four senators—David Yulee and Stephen Mallory of Florida and Benjamin Fitzpatrick and Clement Clay of Alabama—rose and spoke, while Davis by prearrangement waited until last. When his turn came, he stood at his desk, tall and slender, his face drawn with pain and illness, as he made his statement in a voice that grew stronger as he progressed.
Davis did not attempt to argue his case but simply set forth his reasoning that states were sovereign entities and thus had a right to secede from the Union. His state, he declared, had reached its decision because “we are about to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us.” He stated, however, that he bore his former colleagues no ill will. His conclusion, “having made the announcement which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains for me to bid you a final adieu,” was met by brief silence, followed by a burst of applause, as many in the galleries wept. Then, in sadness, Jefferson Davis led his four southern colleagues up the aisle and out of the Senate chamber.
Stunned and confused about how to handle the unprecedented situation, the Senate allowed the members to depart peacefully and simply declared their seats vacant. It did the same with those of the Georgia and Louisiana senators who withdrew or failed to return to the Senate after their states seceded later in January and February. When Congress reconvened in July, however, war was in progress, and the Senate formally expelled members from the four states that had seceded in the meantime, as well as two senators from Texas and one from South Carolina.
In February 1861, Jefferson Davis became president of the Confederate States of America, a position he held throughout the Civil War. Captured by Union troops in May 1865, he was imprisoned until 1867, when he returned home to Mississippi.
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I rise, Mr. President [John C. Breckinridge], for the purpose of announcing to the Senate that I have satisfactory evidence that the State of Mississippi, by a solemn ordinance of her people in convention assembled, has declared her separation from the United States. Under these circumstances, of course my functions are terminated here. It has seemed to me proper, however, that I should appear in the Senate to announce that fact to my associates, and I will say but very little more. The occasion does not invite me to go into argument; and my physical condition would not permit me to do so if it were otherwise; and yet it seems to become me to say something on the part of the State I here represent, on an occasion so solemn as this.
It is known to Senators who have served with me here, that I have for many years advocated, as an essential attribute of State sovereignty, the right of a State to secede from the Union. Therefore, if I had not believed there was justifiable cause; if I had thought that Mississippi was acting without sufficient provocation, or without an existing necessity, I should still, under my theory of the Government, because of my allegiance to the State of which I am a citizen, have been bound by her action. I, however, may be permitted to say that I do think she has justifiable cause, and I approve of her act. I conferred with her people before that act was taken, counseled them then that if the state of things which they apprehended should exist when the convention met, they should take the action which they have now adopted.
I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with the advocacy of the right of a State to remain in the Union, and to disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often confounded, are indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the agent of the States. It is only to be justified when the agent has violated his constitutional obligation, and a State, assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and appeals to the other States of the Union for a decision; but when the States themselves, and when the people of the States, have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights, then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application.
A great man who now reposes with his fathers, and who has been often arraigned for a want of fealty to the Union, advocated the doctrine of nullification, because it preserved the Union. It was because of his deep-seated attachment to the Union, his determination to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties which bound South Carolina to the other States, that Mr. [John C.] Calhoun advocated the doctrine of nullification, which he proclaimed to be peaceful, to be within the limits of State power, not to disturb the Union, but only to be a means of bringing the agent before the tribunal of the States for their judgment.
Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.
I therefore say I concur in the action of the people of Mississippi, believing it to be necessary and proper, and should have been bound by their action if my belief had been otherwise; and this brings me to the important point which I wish on this last occasion to present to the Senate. It is by this confounding of nullification and secession that the name of a great man, whose ashes now mingle with his mother earth, has been invoked to justify coercion against a seceded State. The phrase "to execute the laws," was an expression which General Jackson applied to the case of a State refusing to obey the laws while yet a member of the Union. That is not the case which is now presented. The laws are to be executed over the United States, and upon the people of the United States. They have no relation to any foreign country. It is a perversion of terms, at least it is a great misapprehension of the case, which cites that expression for application to a State which has withdrawn from the Union. You may make war on a foreign State. If it be the purpose of gentlemen, they may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union; but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the limits of a seceded State. A State finding herself in the condition in which Mississippi has judged she is, in which her safety requires that she should provide for the maintenance of her rights out of the Union, surrenders all the benefits, (and they are known to be many,) deprives herself of the advantages, (they are known to be great,) severs all the ties of affection, (and they are close and enduring,) which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of every benefit, taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits.
I well remember an occasion when Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate, and when then the doctrine of coercion was rife and to be applied against her because of the rescue of a fugitive slave in Boston. My opinion then was the same that it is now. Not in a spirit of egotism, but to show that I am not influenced in my opinion because the case is my own, I refer to that time and that occasion as containing the opinion which I then entertained, and on which my present conduct is based. I then said, if Massachusetts, following her through a stated line of conduct, chooses to take the last step which separates her from the Union, it is her right to go, and I will neither vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back; but will say to her, God speed, in memory of the kind associations which once existed between her and the other States.
It has been a conviction of pressing necessity, it has been a belief that we are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed to us, which has brought Mississippi into her present decision. She has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races. That Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were declaring their independence; the people of those communities were asserting that no man was born--to use the language of Mr. Jefferson--booted and spurred to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal--meaning the men of the political community; that there was no divine right to rule; that no man inherited the right to govern; that there were no classes by which power and place descended to families, but that all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body-politic. These were the great principles they announced; these were the purposes for which they made their declaration; these were the ends to which their enunciation was directed. They have no reference to the slave; else, how happened it that among the items of arraignment made against George III was that he endeavored to do just what the North has been endeavoring of late to do--to stir up insurrection among our slaves? Had the Declaration announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the Prince to be arraigned for stirring up insurrection among them? And how was this to be enumerated among the high crimes which caused the colonies to sever their connection with the mother country? When our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men--not even upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be represented in the numerical proportion of three fifths.
Then, Senators, we recur to the compact which binds us together; we recur to the principles upon which our Government was founded; and when you deny them, and when you deny to us the right to withdraw from a Government which thus perverted threatens to be destructive of our rights, we but tread in the path of our fathers when we proclaim our independence, and take the hazard. This is done not in hostility to others, not to injure any section of the country, not even for our own pecuniary benefit; but from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights we inherited, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit unshorn to our children.
I find in myself, perhaps, a type of the general feeling of my constituents towards yours. I am sure I feel no hostility to you, Senators from the North. I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may have been between us, to whom I cannot now say, in the presence of my God, I wish you well; and such, I am sure, is the feeling of the people whom I represent towards those whom you represent. I therefore feel that I but express their desire when I say I hope, and they hope, for peaceful relations with you, though we must part. They may be mutually beneficial to us in the future, as they have been in the past, if you so will it. The reverse may bring disaster on every portion of the country; and if you will have it thus, we will invoke the God of our fathers, who delivered them from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages of the bear; and thus, putting our trust in God and in our own firm hearts and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may.
In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have served long; there have been points of collision; but whatever of offense there has been to me, I leave here; I carry with me no hostile remembrance. Whatever offense I have given which has not been redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have, Senators, in this hour of our parting, to offer you my apology for any pain which, in heat of discussion, I have inflicted. I go hence unencumbered of the remembrance of any injury received, and having discharged the duty of making the only reparation in my power for any injury offered.
Mr. President, and Senators, having made the announcement which the occasion seemed to me to require, it only remains to me to bid you a final adieu.
Source:
Reprinted from Robert C. Byrd, The Senate, 1789-1989: Classic Speeches, 1830-1993 (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994.).
From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 7, pp. 18-23. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2d Session, p. 487.
Citation:
“Classic Senate Speeches.” U.S. Senate: Classic Senate Speeches, 8 Aug. 2023, www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/generic/Speeches_DavisJefferson.htm.
“Jefferson Davis’ Farewell Address.” The Papers of Jefferson Davis | Rice University, jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-farewell-address. Accessed 10 Apr. 2025.