John H. Reagan Quotations

I clung steadfastly to the hope that the democratic party would maintain its nationality and preserve the Constitution and the Union.

The people of the Southern States now own near five millions of these negroes, and they are worth to them near three millions of dollars.

Our own Government succeeded because none but the white race, who were capable of self-government, were enfranchised with the rights of freemen.

You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us.

You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue law, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers.

The success of those doctrines would also subvert the Federal Constitution, change the character of the Federal Government, and destroy our rights in respect to slavery.

It is proclaimed by the great leaders of that party, by its political conventions, by its ministers of the Gospel, and by every other means they have of giving currency and importance to the declaration, that it is its mission to abolish slavery in the Union.

The irrepressible conflict propounded by abolitionism has produced now its legitimate fruits - disunion.

But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been.

The doctrines of his party, are that negro slavery, as it exists with us, is religiously, morally, socially, and politically wrong.

The Constitution of the United States was made by white men, the citizens and representatives of twelve slaveholding and one non-slaveholding State; and it was made for white men.