Unconquerable Strength Quotes
Ironically, events later supported the truth of his statement. He was wrong about the parties however. It was the South who denied liberty to a very large part of their population, and it was the “unconquerable will” of the enslaved Negroes that eventually prevailed. It is hard for most of us in modern times to understand why Davis and other Southerners saw themselves as having freedom curtailed over an economic factor—chattel slavery—and not see that the institution of slavery was a total denial of freedom to a huge part of their population. See England’s Dr. Johnson XXXXX for a classic contemporary statement of this contradiction.
At the time the Romans controlled most of the world as Calgacus knew it, and he was urging his tribes, as far as he knew the furthest from Rome, to resist the Romans. The quotation comes from Tacitus, the Roman historian, who had no first hand knowledge of Calgacus’ speech, but who accompanied the Roman troops and presumably was informed by Calgacus’s troops.
