He also stated that the Confederacy was the first country in the world founded on the principle of white supremacy: 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. Stephens contended that advances and progress in the sciences proved that the United States Declaration of Independence's view that " all men are created equal" was erroneous and that all men were not created equal.
It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it-when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell." They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong.
CORNERSTONE MEANING HOW TO
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. 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. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution-African slavery as it exists among us-the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. He declared that disagreements over the enslavement of African Americans were the "immediate cause" of secession and that the Confederate constitution had resolved such issues, saying: Stephens' speech criticized the Founding Fathers, and Thomas Jefferson in particular, for their anti-slavery and egalitarian views, accusing them of erroneously assuming that races are equal. 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". steamship Star of the West, carrying supplies for Fort Sumter.
However, there had been isolated incidents, such as the attack on 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. The war itself would not begin until the U.S. 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. This stone which was rejected by the first builders 'is become the chief of the corner'-the real 'corner-stone'-in our new edifice. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. Later in the speech, Stephens used biblical imagery ( Psalm 118, v.22) in arguing that divine laws consigned African Americans to slavery as the "substratum of our society": This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. Our new government.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.
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:
The improvised speech, delivered a few weeks before the Civil War began, defended slavery as a fundamental 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. Stephens, acting Vice President of the Confederate States of America, at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861. The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration given by Alexander H.
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