Slavery and Confederate Nationalism

Today, 21 March 2011, marks the 150^th anniversary of Alexander Hamilton Stephens’ delivery of the Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia. On 20 December 1860, the state convention called by the legislature of South Carolina after the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency had voted for secession from the Union. By the beginning of February, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, George, Louisiana, and Texas had followed suit. And on 7 February 1861, these states joined together to form the Confederate States of America. Soon thereafter, Jefferson Davis was elected its President, and Stephens, its Vice-President.

In his Second Inaugural, looking back, Abraham Lincoln observed that, on the eve of the Civil War, “one eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern half of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.”

After that conflict, southern apologists, such as the renowned classicist Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, would insist that “the cause we fought for and our brothers died for was the cause of civil liberty, and not the cause of human slavery.” But the facts support Lincoln’s claim.

At the time of secession, for example, the state convention in Mississippi announced, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery,” and asserted, “There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union,” noting that “the hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory” and grew stronger in the succeeding decades.

No one, however, made the southern case with greater eloquence and force than Stephens, who had opposed secession in Georgia on prudential grounds and then rallied to its support once the decision had been made. When he returned to Savannah to address the George convention on 21 March 1861, this is what he said:

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution–African slavery as it exists amongst 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. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. 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 government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

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–sub-ordination 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. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics.

All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind–from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just–but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern states, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed and that he and his associates in this crusade against our institutions would ultimately fail. The truth announced that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.

In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.

As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo–it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey, and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him admitted them. Now they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment 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 sub-ordination 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. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Sub-ordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material–the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The sub-stratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so.

It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. 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. I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph.

What Stephens not only recognized but publicly acknowledged was that one could not justify secession as a revolutionary act if one could not establish that slavery is just – and this required a repudiation of the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. It says much about the radical alteration in sentiments that had taken place in the South in the decades preceding secession that, in 1861, a Democrat named after Thomas Jefferson joined hands with a Whig named after Alexander Hamilton to reject the cornerstone on which the United States of America had been constructed by their namesakes and other like-minded patriots. Despite the differences that separated these two men from the new President of the United States, they were in agreement with him on one point: A house divided against itself cannot stand.