Cornerstone Speech

The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.

Delivered extemporaneously a few weeks before the Confederacy would start the American Civil War by firing on the U.S. Army at Fort Sumter, Stephens' speech explained the fundamental differences between the constitutions of the Confederacy and that of the United States, enumerated contrasts between U.S. and Confederate ideologies and beliefs, laid out the Confederacy's causes for declaring secession, and defended the enslavement of African Americans.

Title

The Cornerstone Speech became so known for Stephens's declaration that the perpetuation of slavery was the principal goal and purpose of the secession and the Confederacy:

Our new government is founded upon exactly [this] 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.

Overview

Background

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 United States president. The war itself would not begin until Fort Sumter was attacked in mid-April, so open large-scale hostilities between the two sides had not yet begun (there had been isolated incidents such as the attack on the Star of the West steamship). Referring to the general lack of violence, Stephens stated that the seceding states' declarations of secession had been accomplished without "the loss of a single drop of blood".

The 'Cornerstone'

Stephens' speech declared that disagreements over the enslavement of African Americans was the "immediate cause" of secession, and that the Confederate Constitution had resolved such issues:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."

Stephens contended that advances and progress in the sciences proved the earlier 18th century view that "all men are created equal" was erroneous, and that all men were not created equal. He stated that advances in science proved that enslavement of African Americans by white men was justified, and that it coincided with the Bible's teachings. He also stated that the Confederacy was the first country in the world founded on the principle of racial supremacy:

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.

Stephens stated that the Confederacy's belief in human inequality was adhering to the "laws of nature":

. . . look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgement of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature's laws.

The phrases "laws of nature" and "all men are created equal", from the United States Declaration of Independence, had formed part of the basis of Abraham Lincoln's assertion that he was defending the principles of the Founders of the United States (albeit many of whom owned slaves themselves). Democrats such as John C. Calhoun and Stephen A. Douglas had differing views on what the phrase meant. Calhoun had contended that the idea was peculiar to Thomas Jefferson, and not a universal principle, whereas Douglas maintained that it referred to white men only. Stephens' assertion, in this context, has been read as validating Lincoln's reading of the Founders' principles and countering with an assertion of "racial inequality".

After the Confederacy's defeat at the hands of the Union in the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, Stephens attempted to retract the opinions made in his speech. Denying his earlier statements that slavery was the Confederacy's cause for leaving the Union, he contended, to the contrary, that he thought that the war was rooted in constitutional differences.

Constitutional differences

Economic

The speech also outlined how the Confederate constitution eliminated the tariff and prohibited the central government from spending on internal improvements. The reasoning was on a States Rights argument with the Georgia Railroad as a first example:

The cost of the grading, the superstructure, and the equipment of our roads was borne by those who had entered into the enterprise. Nay, more not only the cost of the iron — no small item in the aggregate cost — was borne in the same way, but we were compelled to pay into the common treasury several millions of dollars for the privilege of importing the iron, after the price was paid for it abroad. What justice was there in taking this money, which our people paid into the common treasury on the importation of our iron, and applying it to the improvement of rivers and harbors elsewhere?

...

If Charleston harbor needs improvement, let the commerce of Charleston bear the burden. If the mouth of the Savannah river has to be cleared out, let the sea-going navigation which is benefited by it, bear the burden.

Stephens believed that the new country would have a clear delineation between federal and state responsibilities, and took the position similar to that of South Carolina during the nullification crisis that the federal government should not pay for internal improvements.

Stephens, in effect, accuses the North of slavemongering in its attempt to retain the border states for their tax revenues derived from slavery.

Procedural

The first change was apparently very important to Stephens and he would have made the constitution even closer to the British system, but he felt it was still an improvement over the old constitution. That

cabinet ministers and heads of departments may have the privilege of seats upon the floor of the Senate and House of Representatives and may have the right to participate in the debates and discussions upon the various subjects of administration

As an example, in the U.S. Constitution, the Secretary of the Treasury had no chance to explain his budget or to be held accountable except by the press.

Also, the president was to serve a single six-year term in the hope that it would "remove from the incumbent all temptation to use his office or exert the powers confided to him for any objects of personal ambition."

Status

The seven states then seceded, Stephens thought, were sufficient to form a successful republic, with a population of five million (including blacks) and a land area larger than that of France, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom combined. The seven states contained taxable property of $2,200,000,000 and debts of only $18,000,000 (where the remaining United States had a debt of $174,000,000).

Future

The Confederate constitution allowed new states to join easily. Stephens said that surely North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas would be members in the near future, and that Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri would eventually join.

Stephens expected the swift evacuation of Fort Sumter, a Union stronghold in South Carolina, but what "course will be pursued toward Fort Pickens, and the other forts on the gulf, is not so well understood." Since the new republic had been born bloodless, he wanted that to continue and to make peace "not only with the North, but with the world." Even so, he expected the North would not follow a peaceful course:

The principles and position of the present Administration of the United States--the Republican Party--present some puzzling questions. While it is a fixed principle with them, never to allow the increase of a foot of Slave Territory, they seem to be equally determined not to part with an inch “of the accursed soil.” Notwithstanding their clamor against the institution, they seemed to be equally opposed to getting more, or letting go what they have got. They were ready to fight on the accession of Texas, and are equally ready to fight now on her secession. Why is this? How can this strange paradox be accounted for? There seems to be but one rational solution--and that is, notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor. Their philanthropy yields to their interest. The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is a collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after--though they come from the labor of the slave.

Finally, Stephens predicted that the new nation would succeed or fail based on the character of its constituent body politic.

Legacy

During the war, when the Confederacy refused to release black U.S. soldiers in exchange for captured Confederates, Benjamin F. Butler referred to the speech, telling the Confederates that "your fabric of opposition to the Government of the United States has the right of property in man as its corner-stone."

Historian Harry V. Jaffa discusses the speech at length in his book, A New Birth of Freedom. He concludes that "this remarkable address conveys, more than any other contemporary document, not only the soul of the Confederacy but also of that Jim Crow South that arose from the ashes of the Confederacy." Jaffa equated the racism of Stephens' and the Confederacy to that of Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, stating the two were not very different in principle:

Stephens's prophecy of the Confederacy's future resembles nothing so much as Hitler's prophecies of the Thousand-Year Reich. Nor are their theories very different.

— Harry V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom: Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, (2000), p. 223.

See also

• Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

External links

• Excerpts from the speech