Hurrah! Hurrah! for Southern rights hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Bonnie Blue Flag
That bear a single star.
The Southern Confederacy
Read May 11, 1909
More than a hundred years ago the American States rebelled against the tyranny of England, the mother country, and formed a Confederacy of and among themselves to work together for their own welfare and prosperity. It was granted by their Constitution, and by the States, that each or any individual State had the right under provocation, to withdraw from the pact.
Not quite fifty years ago the Southern States of this Union, having endured provocation after provocation, withdrew from their Northern oppressors, and formed themselves into the Confederacy, whose brief existence ran red with the best blood of her chivalrous land. War was not contemplated. A peaceable separation was desired. A peace conference was held to which representatives of the States were invited. Measure after measure was proposed, so that war might be averted. All were rejected. The recusant States must be whipped back into submission to the autocrats that would direct their affairs. With restricted territory, a minority of population, and home interests directly opposed to those of the over-riding North, what was there to hope for but continuous degradation? Our leaders have been accused of precipitating the war for their own personal ambition. It was another "Aaron Burr conspiracy." Let us hear what they had to say about it.
Jefferson Davis, the fearless soldier and upright citizen—the man who by reason of his supreme fitness was a little later, chosen President of the Confederacy, said in his last speech before the United States Senate: