Rensselaer Union, Volume 3, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1871 — What Jeff Davis Said. [ARTICLE]

What Jeff Davis Said.

Tint following is an extract from the recent speech made at Augusta, Ga., by Jeff. Davis: Let the people of the North take care of themselves. You went to war upon the same question for which your ancestors and theirs contended in the first revolution against the Government of Great Britain —the right of commercial independence or State sovereignty. You secured it in that first war, and Estate sovereignty mu A again be restored, or else the Republic of America is a failure. Despotism cannot be exercised under a republican form of but wait, all will be well. If any ot us die before the day of peace and liberty dawns, let us die in the taith that it will come at last. The people «T -the North wili never sumndir tin ir rights; and when they see the danger at Jfuu.no then they will need jour aid and wul come to you, and then you will be. crowned with victory and triumphant success. [Applause. | lam not of those who “accept the situation.” 1 accept nothing. T hese cant phrases that we hear so much of about “accepting the situation ” aud about our rights having been submitted to the “ arbitrament of the sword” are but the excuses of cowards. | Applause.] I admit that that power is so great that it would be folly to resist it, and therefore I am in favor, myself, of being acquiescent.jand I advbc you to the same course, but I do not admit that our rights have ever been submitted to the arbitrament of the sword. Who has the power to submit, our liberties to the arbitrament of battie? You never delegated that p iwer to your representatives. I, as your Executive, never claimed it, and never, dying or living, will I admit it. [ Applause. | And then, my friends, about this much talked-of subject of “accepting the situation.” You arc not called upon •to acknowledge that you have done wrong unless you feel it. I don’t believe I did any wrong, and therefore I don’t ac knowledge it. All that a government has a right to claim from any of its subjects is that they will quietly submit to the law. Liberty of law is their inheritance, and submission to the law as long as it is such is their duty and their obligation. and itjshould be their pride. Now, my friends, having already said more than 1 intended, it only remains tor me to say how happy I am to see the evidences of prosperity that now surround you. The first time that I saw’ the place where your city now Stands,,if was little more than a wilderness. When I saw it again I Jooked upon the blackened aud deserted ruins, upon the sad wreck of noble fortunes, upon desolated hearthstones and upon ruined and slnckencd people. Your city has been devastated aud laid’waste by an act of vandalism darker than aught that ever disgraced the fame of Tureune. But I look upon it again to-day, and the traces of desolation ami destruction are no longer visible; but in their stead magnificent structures rise upon every hand to mark the wonderful advance of improvement, prosperity and material greatness. I rejoice in it. It is but the beginning of the grand era of prosperity ;that is yet to come, and I rejoice to see you going on building your railroads, establishing your manufactories, inaugurating new enterprises of commercial profit, building up your town, improving your lands, and developing the material resources within .your reach. - You will thus go on increasing until you become wealthy and powerful. I say I rejoice in these evidences of assiduous, earnest labor in tilings material, because there is little in this that the foreign government can interfere with. Persevere in this direction,- wait quietly and patiently, until the tide turns—as, sooner or later, turn it will—and the day is not far distant when the sun w ill shine upon j’ou a free, independent and sovereign State.