While rooting around the other day, I came across the few
lines below, reportedly delivered by Jefferson Davis from the front steps of
the Bates House in Charlotte. The speech would have been given on April 18,
1865. The date of the article was May 20, 1896. I have read (but not looked for
the actual piece) that there was an earlier version of this speech printed in a
newspapers in Georgia, maybe just a couple of years after the war. If these
claims are true, then would this not be the last speech of Jefferson Davis?
Would not Charlotte be the place of that last speech?
"My friends, you greet me as cordially as if I brought
you tidings of victory, while indeed I am the bearer of bad news. Gen. Lee has
been forced to surrender--but the men live yet. The war has been for the people
and by the people, and if they are firm and true there is hope. I thank you
from my heart for this evidence of your confidence, and can say in reviewing my
administration for the last four years, I am conscious of having committed
errors and very great ones, but in all that I have done, in all that I have
tried to do, I can lay my hand upon my heart and appeal to God that I have but
one purpose to serve--but one mission to fulfill--the preservation of the true
principles of constitutional freedom, which are as dear to me to-day as they
were four years ago. I have nothing to abate or take back. If they were right
then, they are right now and no misfortune to our arms can change right into
wrong. Again I thank you."
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