Jefferson Davis Hopes the "Oppressed S" Shall "Rise Once again"

While he awaits trial for treason, Davis writes a close friend lamenting the "Radical" dominion of the Republicans and the country of the southland.

A very early use of this now famous phrase

The expression "The s shall ascension again" is one that everyone has heard, not just in the southern states just throughout the entire nation. It has been used as a political slogan, a regional emblem, a football game boxing cry, and fifty-fifty...

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A very early use of this now famous phrase

The expression "The due south shall rise again" is one that everyone has heard, not only in the southern states just throughout the unabridged nation. It has been used equally a political slogan, a regional emblem, a football game battle cry, and even been the title of a 1950s song ("Salve Your Confederate Money Boys, The South Shall Rise Again"). However, the expression is not a recent one; its genesis dates dorsum to the turbulent years directly following the Civil War.

In the belatedly 1860s and early 1870s southern Democrats began to gain more than political strength equally former Confederates were once again given the right to vote. During this fourth dimension, across the South, people known to history as the Redeemers came into prominence. The Redeemers actively promoted a return to conservative Autonomous dominion and opposed the Republican-led, federally-imposed local and country governments, which they saw as corrupt and a violation of true principles. They were as well dedicated to white dominance and sought to deny blacks any part in the new South. Many of the Redeemers were plantation owners and other wealthy elites who had lost ability and wealth during the Civil War, former Confederate soldiers and loyalists, and a wide diverseness of supporters. From 1868, they used violence, intimidation and even fraud to control or sabotage any election they could non influence, the goal beingness to reduce Republican voting and oust electric current officeholders. In 1868 lone, there were over 1,000 political murders in Louisiana, nigh of the victims being freedmen. The motto and rally weep that the Redeemers adopted was "the Due south shall rise again," and this became something of a motto for the area, one that was at times used by candidates to stir up racial and regional confrontation. It has retained its currency into the 21st century.

Before the Ceremonious State of war, Jefferson Davis seved as Secretary of the Navy under President Franklin Pierce. While in this position he met and befriended America'due south get-go Assistant Secretarial assistant of State, Ambrose Dudley Mann. During the war, Confederate President Davis appointed Isle of mann every bit 1 of the offset Commissioners to Europe and Mann eventually gained the championship of Confederate Commissioner for Belgium and the Vatican.

Afterwards Lee's surrender at Appomattox, Davis fled Richmond and was captured past Federal cavalry virtually Irwinville, Georgia on May 10, 1865. He was and then held at Fort Monroe on charges of treason against the United States until May of 1867, when he was released on a $100,000 bond. The bond was posted by several prominent Americans, among them his wartime opponents Horace Greeley, Cornelius Vanderbilt and Gerrit Smith. Though a public trial was something Davis eagerly sought because it would raise the event of whether or not secession was actually illegal no less treasonous, information technology was long delayed. Meanwhile, he refused to apologize or consider ideas of a pardon.

In 1868, after spending time in New Orleans and Canada, Davis and his wife traveled to Europe. He wanted to call on Isle of mann, who had moved to Paris later the war, but serious illness in his family prevented information technology. In this important alphabetic character, Davis explains all that, mentions his ain sick health (no doubt worsened past the physical and mental strain of his confinement and abiding travels), and conspicuously describes his family's reduced straits and meager budget. He laments the delays in and inconveniences of his upcoming trial, which were in part the outcome of the unavailability of Main Justice Salmon Chase, who was presiding over the trial subsequently impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Davis also decries the "radical rule" of the Federal government, and with the U.Southward. presidential election of 1868 just ahead, he doubts that New York Governor and Democratic candidate Horatio Seymour can defeat the pop Republican candidate, U.S. Grant. This leads him to regret the status of the South, wondering if information technology will ever take the "life to rise again."

Autograph Letter Signed, Waterloo, England, October 9, 1868 to Mann. "My dear friend, I have long desired to write to you lot but having learned that you had changed your residence was at a loss how to accost y'all, until I met our friend Senator [James A.] Bayard at London. Immediately thereafter I returned to Liverpool and learned that my son who was at school at this place was dangerously ill, and on my arrival hither institute him so low that for weeks we had more to fear than to hope. He is now convalescent just my wife is quite ill, probably consistent on fatigue and anxiety, and I have suffered from the disease which has afflicted this hamlet. You will I hope excuse the filibuster in announcing myself to you and believe that i of our bang-up desires in Europe was to encounter you again. It was my intention to leave France before this date just all of my plans have been disturbed for the causes already stated. The U.S. Court earlier which I am under bail to appear meets again on the 23rd of Nov and unless notified that my presence is non required I shall take to be in Richmond, Va. at that time. My counsel expected to receive notice dispensing with my omnipresence because the case would not exist tried in the absence of the circuit estimate, the Chief Justice Chase, and it was well understood that he could non preside in the Circuit Courtroom, considering the term of the Supreme Court would commence in the ensuing week. Having however been compelled on the two former occasions to go to Richmond and when information technology was known there would be no hearing, it may be that a like needless journeying will again be necessary.

"Every bit before long as the wellness of my family will allow it is our purpose to exit here, going in the first instance probably to Leamington, and after a short stay in that location I wish to go to France. My object is to locate my family in some healthy place where they may alive at such small expense every bit our circumstances volition let, and where the children may have good schools accessible from their Female parent's lodgings. We have looked to you for information and communication. I need not say that the lowest rates consistent with comfort will be accepted.

"The American newspapers take non recently encouraged the promise of Seymour's ballot, I cannot bear to contemplate another iv years of 'Radical' dominion. Their crimes would probably atomic number 82 to a terrible reaction and their punishment would be more full and therefore more benign to the oppressed Due south, if it were possible to wait so long and yet take life to rise again. Mrs. Davis presents to you lot her kindest remembrance…I am your friend, Jeff'n Davis."

The sentiment in this letter is overwhelming, with Davis feeling persecuted, impoverished, and powerless, fifty-fifty equally his worst adversaries maraude through the due south and ready to inaugurate Grant and his Republicans into the Execute Mansion. Moreover, because the timing of this alphabetic character, the very language with which information technology ends is startlingly consistent with the rally cry of the Redeemers – "The southward shall rise once again" – which raises some interesting potentialities. If Davis borrowed the expression from the Redeemers in composing this alphabetic character, that would tend to indicate that he was in sympathy with them and their program. On the other manus, its use hither may bespeak that Davis himself had something to do with the phrase's origin. Although its verbal genesis is not known, it is possible that some unknown person within the Redeemers originated it.  Another scenario is that it was adopted from an early version of a quote that Jefferson Davis used in 1873, and which he borrowed from Thomas Carlyle: "Truth crushed to globe will rise again." Plus at that place is the intriguing possibility that the language of this very letter of the alphabet may have been published in southern newspapers at the time and resulted in creation of the phrase.

The Supreme Court somewhen dismissed the charges confronting Davis, though his U.South. citizenship was simply restored posthumously.

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