Refer to explorations in literature for a complete version of this speech. which excerpt from jefferson davis’s speech to the mississippi legislature best expresses a major theme of his speech? “…whenever a northern army should be assembled to march for the subjugation of the south, they would have a battle to fight at home before they passed the limits of their own state…” “in the language of the venerated calhoun i consider the disruption of the union as a great though not the greatest calamity.” “for many of the best years of my life i have followed that flag and upheld it on fields where if i had fallen it might have been claimed as my winding sheet.” “absurd as all this may seem to you… i have reason to believe that it has been inculcated to no small extent in the northern mind.”