“The really remarkable fact which is to be inferred from the conduct of the Southern States is, the genuine alarm with which they regarded the workings of Democracy. ... They had acted in partnership with one for seventy years. They had watched it ripening year by year to the full development of mob supremacy. ... They deliberately decided that civil war, with all its horrors, and with all its peculiar risks to themselves as slaveowners, was a lighter evil than to be surrendered to the justice or the clemency of a victorious Democracy. It is not for Europe to dispute the accuracy of their judgment.”

— Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury

Source: 'Democracy on its Trial', Quarterly Review, 110, 1861, p. 274

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Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury 112

British politician 1830–1903

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