“The State of Georgia was a sovereign State. She had the right to secede from the Union.”— Joseph E. Brown
“I entered the Confederate service for the purpose of defending the rights of the States.”— Joseph E. Brown
“The Union is a stake of such inestimable value as to demand our constant and watchful vigilance for its preservation.”— James Buchanan
“It is a great misfortune that the people of the North are not so well prepared for the great struggle for the preservation of the Union and constitutional government as the people of the South are for its destruction.”— Gideon Welles
“To secede from the Union and set up another government would be an act of suicide on the part of the State.”— Sam Houston
“The institutions of this country are in the hands of an armed rebellion. The Government is in a death-grapple with them.”— Thaddeus Stevens
“With our aggrieved brethren of the Slave States, we have friendly relations and a common sympathy. While other cities have been distracted by violent differences of opinion, and have suffered insult and injury at the hands of mobs, New York has been tranquil.”— Fernando Wood
“The causes of the war... were, in my opinion, the questions of the supremacy of the Nation on the one hand, and of the sovereignty of the States on the other.”— John Brown Gordon
“I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heroes of 1776 will be found on both sides.”— Sam Houston
“Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, inhuman and diabolical, and cannot be complied with.”— Claiborne Fox Jackson