Cornerstone Speech
The Cornerstone Speech, given on March 21, 1861 in Savannah, Georgia, was delivered by Alexander H. Stephens, who would soon serve as vice president of the Confederate States. In this talk, he explained why the Confederacy had left the United States and what it stood for.
His main point was blunt and shocking to many listeners: the new Confederate government rests on a “great truth” that the negro is not equal to the white man, and that slavery and white supremacy are the natural and normal conditions for Black people. He described this idea as the cornerstone of the Confederacy, saying the Confederacy is the first country in history built on such a principle.
Stephens argued that the founding idea that “all men are created equal,” which many associate with the United States, was wrong. He claimed advances in science and even the Bible supported slavery and racial inequality. He said the Confederacy’s constitution settled the questions about slavery “forever” and that disagreement over slavery had been the immediate cause of secession.
He criticized the Founding Fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, for what he called their failure to understand racial differences. He claimed the Union’s leaders had mistaken the natural order of races and that this mistake had led to the breakup of the old Union. In his view, the new Confederate government was different in its foundations and would be the first in the world to acknowledge what he called natural and moral truths about race.
Stephens contrasted the Confederate constitution with the U.S. Constitution. He said the Confederacy would reject tariffs and limits on federal spending for internal improvements, arguing for strong states’ rights. He gave practical examples, such as how Charleston Harbor and the Savannah River projects had been paid for by the states, not by a distant central government. He suggested the Confederate system would be more locally minded and that the government’s powers should be clearly divided between states and the central authority.
He believed the seven states that had seceded could form a successful republic with about five million people and a large land area, and he thought more states would join in time. He expected Fort Sumter to fall away quickly and hoped for peace with the North and the world, though he criticized Republicans for opposing slavery while resisting the secession of slave states.
After the war began, Stephens tried to downplay slavery as the war’s cause, saying constitutional differences were more important and that reports of his speech were sometimes misquoted. Nevertheless, the Cornerstone Speech is widely seen as a clear public declaration of the Confederacy’s racist purpose and its belief in a society built on white supremacy. It has been cited by historians and others as a stark example of the Confederacy’s stated goals.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:41 (CET).