"If slaves make good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong. But they won't make soldiers. As a class they are wanting in every qualification of a soldier. Better by far to yield to the demands of England and France and abolish slavery and thereby purchase their aid, than resort to this policy, which leads as certainly to ruin and subjugation as it is adopted; you want more soldiers, and hence the proposition to take negroes into the Army. Before resorting to it, at least try every reasonable mode of getting white soldiers. I do not entertain a doubt that you can, by the volunteering policy, get more men into the service than you can arm. I have more fears about arms than about men, For Heaven’s sake, try it before you fill with gloom and despondency the hearts of many of our truest and most devoted men, by resort to the suicidal policy of arming our slaves."
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Democratic Party (United States) politiciansMilitary leaders from the United StatesLawyers from the United StatesPeople from Georgia (U.S. state)Confederate military leaders
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Quote regarding suggestions that the Confederates turn their slaves into soldiers. Also quoted as 'You cannot make soldiers of slaves, or slaves of soldiers. The day you make a soldier of them is the beginning of the end of the Revolution. And if slaves seem good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong'.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Howell_Cobb
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Howell Cobb
Thomas Howell Cobb (7 September 1815 – 9 October 1868) was a Georgian politician during the 19th century. A southern Democrat who supported slavery and owned slaves himself, he was the Governor of Georgia in the early 1850s and later became a member of the Confederacy during the American Civil War.
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