Charles Dickens: “The Northern onslaught upon Southern slavery is a specious piece of humbug designed to mask their desire for the economic control of the Southern states.”
Lord Acton: “I saw in States Rights the only available check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. I deemed you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization and I mourn for that which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
IL Gov Richard Yates, Jan 2, 1865: “The war tended more than any other event in the history of the country, to militate against the Jeffersonian ideal that the best government is that which governs least.”
Mildred Rutherford, Truths of History: There were more slave holders (315,000) in the Union army than in the Confederate army (200,000).”