Jefferson Davis
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President of the Confederate States of America · Confederate States of America
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“Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established.”
Inaugural address of the Confederate provisional president, delivered about seven weeks before the firing on Fort Sumter. Davis uses the language of the Declaration of Independence to describe the secession of the Confederate states.
Jefferson Davis, first inaugural address, 18 February 1861, The Papers of Jefferson Davis, vol. 7, pp. 45-51 (Rice University), transcribed from the Congressional Journal, vol. 1, pp. 64-66 Source