Constitution
The United Daughters of the Confederacy did not just live by unspoken southern principles. The organization worked from a carefully planned constitution. This document defined the association’s goals and structure. From the Albert Sydney Johnston Chapter’s Constitution, adopted in Louisville, KY in 1898:
“The objects of this Association are the same as those prescribed in Article II of the Constitution of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, to-wit: Education, memorial, literary, social, and benevolent; to collect and preserve the material for a truthful history of the war between the Confederate States and the United States of America; to honor the memory of those who served and those who fell in the service of the Confederate States, and to record the part taken by Southern women as well in untiring effort after the war in the reconstruction of the South, as in patient endurance of hardship and patriotic devotion during the struggle; to cherish ties of friendship among members of the Society, and to fulfill the duties of sacred charity to the survivors of the war and those dependent upon them.”