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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAny time someone tells you that slavery was not the reason for the Civil War, show them this 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.The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutionsAfrican slavery as it exists among usthe 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 itwhen the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech
My jaw dropped the first time I heard the statement that the Civil War was not about slavery. I was not well informed enough to counter that stunning falsehood.
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Any time someone tells you that slavery was not the reason for the Civil War, show them this speech (Original Post)
Human101948
Jul 2015
OP
randys1
(16,286 posts)1. Nothing any person on the right ever says about anything is correct or accurate
exboyfil
(17,863 posts)2. Senior Editor from the National Review
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/262624/confederate-cornerstone-richard-brookhiser
When all the mainstream GOPers are to the right of Brookhiser you really have to wonder.
When all the mainstream GOPers are to the right of Brookhiser you really have to wonder.