Of course. I, as you know, freed my own slaves before entering the service of the South. It is one of the ironies of Fate that I am supposed to be fighting for slavery—I who refuse to own a slave and my opponent General Grant is through his wife's estate a slaveholder. Slavery is doomed, sir. It can never survive this tragedy. The Legislature of Virginia came within one vote of freeing her slaves, years ago.
Davis
I know. But the great Gulf States and South Carolina with their majority of Negro population will never agree to the arming of half a million slaves.
Lee
And you will allow Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina to defeat a plan necessary to save the life of the Confederacy?
Davis
The States are sovereign, General Lee—for this principle we are fighting.
Lee
Then I think it may be time to ask ourselves, heart to heart, the question whether the Confederacy, as organized, does not carry within its own body the seeds of death? The rights of a state must somewhere yield to the supreme power of a nation. The Negro will make a brave soldier, and he can save the South. Will you use him?
Davis