“Never mind that the South took the initiative by seceding in defiance of an election of a president by a constitutional majority. Never mind that the Confederacy started the war by firing on the American flag”

— James M. McPherson

James M. McPherson. "The War of Southern Aggression" https://web.archive.org/web/20160317110023/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1989/01/19/the-war-of-southern-aggression/ (19 January 1989), The New York Review of Books
1980s
Context: To a good many southerners the events of 1861–1865 have been known as 'The War of Northern Aggression'. Never mind that the South took the initiative by seceding in defiance of an election of a president by a constitutional majority. Never mind that the Confederacy started the war by firing on the American flag. These were seen as preemptive acts of defense against northern aggression.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Never mind that the South took the initiative by seceding in defiance of an election of a president by a constitutional…" by James M. McPherson?

James M. McPherson 27

American historian 1936

Related quotes

“Another portion say that, if a Republican President is elected, they will secede from the confederacy, and organize a separate and independent Confederacy of their own. Whether that constitutes treason or not, is a matter of opinion, and may be a matter of controversy; but it is, nevertheless, equally fatal to the perpetuity of the existing Government and the existing institutions of the country.”

Benjamin Stanton (1809–1872) American politician

Speech (1860)

“Shoot down the Confederacy and uphold the flag; the American flag.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, What the Black Man Wants (1865)

“The majority of Americans — the ones who never elected you — are not fooled by your weapons of mass distraction.”

Michael Moore (1954) American filmmaker, author, social critic, and liberal activist

About President George W. Bush, in "A Letter to George W. Bush on the Eve of War" (17 March 2003) http://www.alternet.org/story/15406/
2003

“Alexander Hamilton Stephens' Constitutional View of the War Between the States, which was and remains probably the best defense of the Confederate cause. It is all about states' rights, and the defense of the minority against the tyranny of the numerical majority, although the "silent minority", the four million slaves, are never counted. It is substantially the book that Calhoun would have written had he been alive to do so. Stephens, who was Vice President of the Confederacy, had also been widely known, north and south, as one of the intellectual luminaries of his time.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, Defending the Cause of Human Freedom (1994)

“War fans spit on the principles of the American Revolution when they charge obediently wherever their president points our flag.”

Paul Glover (1947) Community organizer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; American politician

http://www.paulglover.org/9103.html (Ithaca Times, letter to editor), March 1991
Context: “War fans spit on the principles of the American Revolution when they charge obediently wherever their president points our flag. Many flag-wavers know little about the U. S. Constitution, but can explain soap operas and football in detail.”

“The major downside of democracy is that even the least critical minds will never think they are wrong.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“Remember only this of our hopeless love
That never till Time is done
Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

Green Song & Other Poems (1944), Heart and Mind

“Such a flag would be a suitable emblem of our young confederacy, and sustained by the brave hearts and strong arms of the south, it would soon take rank among the proudest ensigns of the nations, and be hailed by the civilized world as THE WHITE MAN'S FLAG.”

William Tappan Thompson (1812–1882) American humorist

Savannah Morning News (28 April 1863); As quoted in Our Flag: Origin and Progress of the Flag of the United States of America https://books.google.com/books?id=vuRCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA417 (1872), by George Henry Preble, Albany: Joel Munsell, pp. 417–418

“The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

1970s, First Presidential address (1974)
Context: The oath that I have taken is the same oath that was taken by George Washington and by every President under the Constitution. But I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances never before experienced by Americans. This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.
Therefore, I feel it is my first duty to make an unprecedented compact with my countrymen. Not an inaugural address, not a fireside chat, not a campaign speech — just a little straight talk among friends. And I intend it to be the first of many.

“Argument is conclusive… but… it does not remove doubt, so that the mind may never rest in the sure knowledge of the truth, unless it finds it by the method of experiment. For if any man who never saw fire proved by satisfactory arguments that fire burns, his hearer's mind would never be satisfied, nor would he avoid the fire until he put his hand in it that he might learn by experiment what argument taught.”

Roger Bacon (1220–1292) medieval philosopher and theologian

Cited in: Carol A. Dingle (2000) Memorable Quotations: Philosophers of Western Civilization. p. 21

“Never mind that the South took the initiative by seceding in defiance of an election of a president by a constitutional majority. Never mind that the Confederacy started the war by firing on the American flag”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

James M. McPherson 27

Related quotes

Related topics