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Cornerstone Speech
The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration given by Alexander H. Stephens, acting Vice President of the Confederate States of America, at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.
The improvised speech, delivered a few weeks before the Civil War began, defended slavery as a necessary and just result of the supposed inferiority of the black race, explained the fundamental differences between the constitutions of the Confederate States and that of the United States, enumerated contrasts between Union and Confederate ideologies, and laid out the Confederacy's rationale for seceding.
The Cornerstone Speech is so called because Stephens used the word "cornerstone" to describe the "great truth" of white supremacy and black subordination upon which secession and the Confederacy were based, in contrast to the Declaration of Independence's "all men are created equal":
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Later in the speech, Stephens used biblical imagery (Psalm 118, v.22) in arguing that divine laws consigned black Americans to slavery as the "substratum of our society":
Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders 'is become the chief of the corner'—the real 'corner-stone'—in our new edifice.
The speech was given weeks after the secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and then Texas and less than three weeks after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States. The war itself would not begin until the U.S. base of Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates in mid-April, so open, large-scale hostilities between the two sides had not yet begun. However, there had been isolated incidents, such as the attack on the U.S. steamship Star of the West, carrying supplies for Fort Sumter. Referring to the general lack of violence, Stephens stated that the secession had to that point been accomplished without "the loss of a single drop of blood".
Stephens' speech criticized the Founding Fathers, and Thomas Jefferson in particular, for their anti-slavery and Enlightenment views, accusing them of erroneously assuming that races are equal. He declared that disagreements over the enslavement of black Americans were the "immediate cause" of secession and that the Confederate constitution had resolved such issues, saying:
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Cornerstone Speech
The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration given by Alexander H. Stephens, acting Vice President of the Confederate States of America, at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.
The improvised speech, delivered a few weeks before the Civil War began, defended slavery as a necessary and just result of the supposed inferiority of the black race, explained the fundamental differences between the constitutions of the Confederate States and that of the United States, enumerated contrasts between Union and Confederate ideologies, and laid out the Confederacy's rationale for seceding.
The Cornerstone Speech is so called because Stephens used the word "cornerstone" to describe the "great truth" of white supremacy and black subordination upon which secession and the Confederacy were based, in contrast to the Declaration of Independence's "all men are created equal":
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
Later in the speech, Stephens used biblical imagery (Psalm 118, v.22) in arguing that divine laws consigned black Americans to slavery as the "substratum of our society":
Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders 'is become the chief of the corner'—the real 'corner-stone'—in our new edifice.
The speech was given weeks after the secession of South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and then Texas and less than three weeks after the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln as the 16th President of the United States. The war itself would not begin until the U.S. base of Fort Sumter was attacked by the Confederates in mid-April, so open, large-scale hostilities between the two sides had not yet begun. However, there had been isolated incidents, such as the attack on the U.S. steamship Star of the West, carrying supplies for Fort Sumter. Referring to the general lack of violence, Stephens stated that the secession had to that point been accomplished without "the loss of a single drop of blood".
Stephens' speech criticized the Founding Fathers, and Thomas Jefferson in particular, for their anti-slavery and Enlightenment views, accusing them of erroneously assuming that races are equal. He declared that disagreements over the enslavement of black Americans were the "immediate cause" of secession and that the Confederate constitution had resolved such issues, saying: