Why the South Went to War
Ever since the Civil War there has been a great argument about whether slavery was its cause. What follows are the words of a high official of the South, a man who was present at the birth of the Confederate States of America (CSA). I think he is telling us what he and the rest of the tyranno-South believed at the time. There is only one conclusion to be drawn from his remarks.
On March 21, 1861, Alexander Stephens, the new Vice President of the Confederacy, delivered his famous “Cornerstone” speech in Savannah, Georgia. The speech was printed in a local newspaper. Stephens took the opportunity to discuss the new Constitution of the CSA. His audience was very receptive. As one of my teachers once said about some other jubilant people, “They were filled with a great exuberance.” Stephens first discussed three topics that made the CSA’s Constitution superior to the USA’s Constitution:
- The cost of making improvements to national infrastructure, such as roads, harbors, and railroads, would be borne by those who used these features and not by a general tax on all citizens or classes of commerce.
- Cabinet ministers and department heads would have seats on the floor of the House and the Senate.
- The president would be limited to one term of six years.
I do not see how any or all of these so-called improvements could justify going to war and risking the lives of thousands of the sons of the South. The key part of Stephens’ speech and the one that has gained the most historical notice over the years is about slavery, or as he called it, “our peculiar institution.” The following excerpt is from a newspaper report, and the eyewitness reporter inserted the “applause” notations. My emphasis is in boldface. Stephens said (emphasis in the original):[i]
But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other—though last, not least. 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 [the U.S.] 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 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. [Applause.] 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.
…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. With us [the people of the CSA], 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. Subordination 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 substratum 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 "cornerstone"—in our new edifice. [Applause.]
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. [Immense applause.]
Thousands of people who begin to understand these truths are not yet completely out of the shell; they do not see them in their length and breadth. We hear much of the civilization and Christianization of the barbarous tribes of Africa. In my judgment, those ends will never be attained, but by first teaching them [the black race] the lesson taught to Adam, that "in the sweat of his brow he should eat his bread," [applause,] and teaching them to work, and feed, and clothe themselves.
Stephens went on and on about it. There could be no doubt in his mind. The tyranno-South went to war to preserve and expand slavery. Stephens said so. Stephens even reminded his listeners that Thomas Jefferson predicted it. Stephens’ audience did not cry out, “No!” or walk out in horror—they applauded—wildly. He repeated the fundamental argument put forward by Jackson of Georgia and Smith of South Carolina in Congress seventy years earlier: that blacks are inferior to whites. His remark about “work” and the “sweat” of one’s brow was noxious in the extreme coming from a leader of the ruling class of the tyranno-South who did no work and who got their bread from the sweat of forced slave labor.
Some have said that the high-water mark of the Confederacy was reached at the battle of Gettysburg, but I think that Stephens’ speech is a better candidate for that distinction. At this point, March of 1861, just before the Civil War, the possibility of a tyranno-society spreading from coast to coast, which would take its rightful place among the leading nations of the world, must have seemed very real to Stephens, his applauding audience, and many others among the tyranno-rulers of the new Confederacy. But in less than a month the destruction of their peculiar tyranno-dream of white supremacy would start, and in a little more than four years its annihilation would be complete.
[i] The text below was taken from a newspaper article in the Savannah Republican, as reprinted in Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private: With Letters and Speeches, before, during, and since the War, Philadelphia, 1886, pp. 717-729.