Jefferson Davis Hopes the "Oppressed South" Shall "Rise Again"

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

A very early use of this now famous phrase

The expression "The south shall ascension again" is 1 that everyone has heard, not only in the southern states merely throughout the unabridged nation. It has been used every bit a political slogan, a regional emblem, a football boxing cry, and even...

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A very early use of this at present famous phrase

The expression "The south shall rise once again" is one that anybody has heard, not merely in the southern states but throughout the entire nation. Information technology has been used as a political slogan, a regional emblem, a football game battle cry, and even been the title of a 1950s song ("Salvage Your Amalgamated Coin Boys, The S Shall Rise Again"). However, the expression is not a recent i; its genesis dates back to the turbulent years directly post-obit the Civil War.

In the late 1860s and early 1870s southern Democrats began to gain more political forcefulness every bit quondam Confederates were in one case again given the right to vote. During this fourth dimension, across the S, people known to history every bit the Redeemers came into prominence. The Redeemers actively promoted a return to bourgeois Democratic rule and opposed the Republican-led, federally-imposed local and state governments, which they saw as corrupt and a violation of true principles. They were also dedicated to white dominance and sought to deny blacks any role in the new S. 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 variety of supporters. From 1868, they used violence, intimidation and fifty-fifty fraud to control or sabotage whatever election they could not influence, the goal being to reduce Republican voting and oust current officeholders. In 1868 lone, there were over 1,000 political murders in Louisiana, nigh of the victims beingness freedmen. The motto and rally weep that the Redeemers adopted was "the South shall ascent again," and this became something of a motto for the area, one that was at times used by candidates to stir upwardly racial and regional confrontation. It has retained its currency into the 21st century.

Before the Civil State of war, Jefferson Davis seved equally Secretary of the Navy under President Franklin Pierce. While in this position he met and befriended America's first Banana Secretary of State, Ambrose Dudley Isle of man. During the war, Confederate President Davis appointed Mann equally one of the starting time Commissioners to Europe and Mann somewhen gained the championship of Confederate Commissioner for Belgium and the Vatican.

After Lee's give up at Appomattox, Davis fled Richmond and was captured past Federal cavalry near Irwinville, Georgia on May 10, 1865. He was then held at Fort Monroe on charges of treason against the Usa until May of 1867, when he was released on a $100,000 bond. The bond was posted by several prominent Americans, amidst 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 issue of whether or not secession was really illegal no less treasonous, it was long delayed. Meanwhile, he refused to apologize or consider ideas of a pardon.

In 1868, subsequently spending time in New Orleans and Canada, Davis and his wife traveled to Europe. He wanted to telephone call on Mann, who had moved to Paris later on the war, but serious illness in his family prevented it. In this important letter, Davis explains all that, mentions his ain sick health (no doubt worsened past the physical and mental strain of his confinement and constant 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 event of the unavailability of Chief Justice Salmon Hunt, who was presiding over the trial after impeachment of President Andrew Johnson. Davis also decries the "radical dominion" of the Federal regime, and with the U.S. presidential ballot of 1868 just alee, 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 condition of the South, wondering if information technology volition always have the "life to ascension once again."

Shorthand Letter Signed, Waterloo, England, Oct 9, 1868 to Mann. "My honey friend, I have long desired to write to y'all only having learned that you lot had changed your residence was at a loss how to accost yous, 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 schoolhouse at this place was dangerously ill, and on my arrival here found him so low that for weeks nosotros had more to fearfulness than to hope. He is now convalescent but my wife is quite ill, probably consequent on fatigue and anxiety, and I have suffered from the disease which has afflicted this village. Y'all will I hope excuse the filibuster in announcing myself to you and believe that one of our great desires in Europe was to meet yous again. It was my intention to exit French republic before this date but all of my plans have been disturbed for the causes already stated. The U.S. Court before which I am under bond to appear meets again on the 23rd of November and unless notified that my presence is non required I shall have to be in Richmond, Va. at that time. My counsel expected to receive detect dispensing with my attendance considering the example would not be tried in the absence of the circuit estimate, the Chief Justice Hunt, and it was well understood that he could not preside in the Circuit Court, because the term of the Supreme Court would embark in the ensuing week. Having however been compelled on the two former occasions to go to Richmond and when it was known in that location would exist no hearing, it may be that a similar needless journeying will again be necessary.

"As presently as the wellness of my family will permit it is our purpose to go out here, going in the first example probably to Leamington, and afterwards a short stay in that location I wish to go to France. My object is to locate my family in some salubrious place where they may live at such small expense equally our circumstances will permit, and where the children may have practiced schools accessible from their Mother'south lodgings. We have looked to you for information and advice. I need not say that the lowest rates consistent with comfort volition be accustomed.

"The American newspapers have not recently encouraged the hope of Seymour's election, I cannot bear to contemplate some other iv years of 'Radical' dominion. Their crimes would probably atomic number 82 to a terrible reaction and their punishment would exist more full and therefore more benign to the oppressed Southward, if it were possible to wait then long and yet have life to rising over again. Mrs. Davis presents to you 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 as his worst adversaries maraude through the south and set to inaugurate Grant and his Republicans into the Execute Mansion. Moreover, considering the timing of this letter, the very language with which it ends is startlingly consequent with the rally cry of the Redeemers – "The south shall rise once more" – 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 here may indicate that Davis himself had something to do with the phrase'south origin. Although its verbal genesis is not known, it is possible that some unknown person within the Redeemers originated information technology.  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 earth volition ascent again." Plus there is the intriguing possibility that the language of this very letter may have been published in southern newspapers at the fourth dimension and resulted in creation of the phrase.

The Supreme Court eventually dismissed the charges against Davis, though his U.Due south. citizenship was only restored posthumously.

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