“The declared purpose of the compact of Union from which we have withdrawn was "to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility [sic], provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;" and when, in the judgment of the sovereign States now composing this Confederacy, it had been p*rverted from the purposes for which it was ordained…the government created by that compact should cease to exist.”

Who recited the words in the excerpt above?

A. William T. Sherman

B. Jefferson Davis

C. Ulysses S. Grant

D. Abraham Lincoln