'[Secular conservatism's] history has been that it demurs to each aggression
of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount
of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the
restricted novelty of yesterday is today one of the accepted principles of
conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next
innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be
succeeded by some third evolution, to be denounced and then adopted in its
turn.
'American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows
Radicalism as it moves forward to perdition. It remains behind it, but never
retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt hath
utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not
hard to explain. It is worthless because it is the conservatism of
expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It tends to risk nothing
serious for the sake of truth.'
- Dr. R. L. Dabney
'[T]he principle for which we contended is bound to reassert
itself, though it may be at antoher time and in another form.'
- Jefferson Davis
'Any people whatsoever have the right to abolish the existing government, and
form a new one that suits
them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right.'
- Abraham Lincoln admitting the right of secession, 4 July 1848
'Abraham Lincoln, in order to maintain the unity of the United
States...resorted to the use of force...so,
I think Abraham Lincoln, president, is a model, is an example.'
- Chinese Premier Zhu Rongii on the secession of Taiwan, 8 April 1999
'I know that in the beginning I, too, had the old West Point notion that
pillage was a capital crime, and punished it by shooting.'
- William T. Sherman; a few years later he and president Ulysses Grant
would use his war crimes against the south as justification for the ethnic
cleansing of American Indians.
'[S]urely that can with no propriety of language be called a Union when
the only means by which the weaker is held connected with the stronger
portion is force. It may, indeed, keep them connected; but the connection
will partake much more of the character of subjugation on the part of the
weaker to the stronger than the union of free, independent, and sovereign
States in one confederation, as they stood in the early stages of the
government, and which only is worthy of the sacred name of Union. ...The
South asks for justice, simple justice, and less she ought not to take. She
has no compromise to offer but the Constitution, and no concession or
surrender to make. She has already surrendered so much that she has little
left to surrender.'
- Sen. John C. Calhoun, 4 March 1850
'Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the
loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of
this as of many other evils.....The quarrel between the North and the South
is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.'
- Charlse Dickens, Dec 1861