“Our present position...illustrates the American idea that government rests upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish a government whenever it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established…and when in the judgment of the sovereign States now comprising the Confederacy it [no longer meets] the purposes for which it was ordained,...”

-- Speech, February, 1861



Who delivered this speech in 1861?



Abraham Lincoln

Jefferson Davis

Robert E. Lee

Ulysses S. Grant

Jefferson Davis