From the Richmond Examiner editorial by John M. Daniel ...

"August 4, 1864.

MR. DAVIS, in conversation with a Yankee spy, named Edward Kirk, is reported by said spy to have said, “We are not fighting for slavery; we are fighting for independence.” This is true ; an is a truth that has not sufficiently been dwelt upon. It would have been very much to be desired that this functionary had developed the idea in some message, or some other State paper, which would have carried it round the world, and repeated it in all languages of civilized nations, instead of leaving it to be promulgated through the doubtful report of an impudent blockade-runner, who ought to have been put in Castle Thunder. The sentiment is true, an should be publicly uttered and kept conspicuously in view ; because our enemies have diligently labored to make all mankind believe that the people of these States have set up a pretended State sovereignty, and based themselves upon that ostensibly, while their real object has been only to preserve to themselves the property in so many negroes, worth so many millions of dollars. The direct reverse is the truth. The question of slavery is only one of the minor issues; and the cause of the war, the whole cause, on our part, is the maintenance of the sovereign independence of these States.

At the beginning of the struggle, and even now, to a great extent, our enemies had, and have, the ear of the world; and they have very dexterously labored to represent us as rushing into a dreadful war on a paltry question of dollars. In the crusade the were about to make upon us, they have shown the utmost solicitude to gain for themselves, in advance, the sympathies of foreign nations, especially of England and France; and, of course, their chief means of gaining this point, consisted in representing that we had no higher or nobler cause to fight for than the possession of a certain quantity of serviceable negro flesh. Thus they knew that not only all the prevailing cants would be canted on their side, but also that a war waged to break up a free and beneficent government upon such a mean issue, would revolt all statesmen, publicists, and thinkers of high mark in every country, who have the true sentiment of national dignity, and can appreciate the loftier and purer springs of human actions on the grand scale. The Yankee knew he might boldly claim the good wishes of civilized communities, so long as he could make it be believed that the only thought and care of the South was that she might keep still on her plantations so many slave bands, raising each year bales per hand.

The whole cause of our resistance was and is, the pretension and full determination of the Northern States to use their preponderance in the Federal representation, in order to govern the Southern States for their profit, just as Austria governs Venetia, Russia governs Poland, or England governs Ireland. Slavery was the immediate occasion—carefully made so by them—it was not the cause. The tariff, which almost brought about the disruption some years ago, would have much more accurately represented, though it did not cover, or exhaust, the real cause of the quarrel. Yet neither tariff's nor slavery, nor both together, could ever have been truly called the cause of the secession and the war. We refuse to accept for a cause any thing lower, meaner, smaller, than that truly announced, namely, the sovereign independence of our States. This, indeed, includes both those minor questions, as well as many others yet graver and higher. It includes full power to regulate our trade for our own profit, and also complete jurisdiction over our own social and domestic institutions; at it further involves all the nobler attributes of national, and even of individual life and character. A community which once submits to be schooled, dictated to, legislated for, by any other, soon grows poor in spirit; it becomes at last incapable of producing a high style of men: its very soul withers within in it: in it no genius, no art, can have its home. If they arise within its borders, they migrate to the dominant country, and seek there their career and their reward: its citizens, become a kind of halfmen, feel that they have hardly a right to walk in the sun; take the lowest seats at the world’s tables, and there is no man to say, Friend, go up higher.

And the people of Virginia do not choose to accept that position for themselves and for their children. They choose rather to die. They own a noble country, which their fathers created, exalted, and transmitted to them with all its treasures of high names and great deeds; with all its native wealth of untamable manhood. That inheritance we intend to own while we live, and leave intact to those who are to come after us. It is ours from the centre of the earth up to the heavens, with all the minerals beneath it, and all the sky above it.

It is right to let foreign nations, and “ those whom it may concern,” understand this theory of our independence. Let them understand that, though we are “not fighting for slavery,” we will not allow ourselves to be dictated to in regard to slavery or any other of our internal affairs, not because that would diminish our interest in any property, but because it touches our independence...."