Slavery In America
Bid time return? Perhaps, but sometimes we wish to remember but not relive the past.
The photograph below was taken in Atlanta, Georgia in 1864.
" 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. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system."
"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 -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition."
On March 21, 1861, Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens, of Georgia, gave an extemporaneous speech at the Athenium in Savannah. No "official" version of the speech exists, but it was transcribed by several newspaper reporters and printed in several newspapers. This is only a part of it.
Cornerstone Speech
Savannah; Georgia, March 21, 1861
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 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 -- 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. 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 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, 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 slave population of the United States increased from 698,000 to 3,954,000 between 1790 and 1860, and 75 percent of these enslaved people worked as agricultural laborers growing cotton, sugar, rice, tobacco, and hemp. The majority of these, moreover, worked in cotton. About 15 percent of southern slaves were classified as domestic servants, and approximately ten percent worked in commerce, trades, and industry--principally in towns and cities. This map shows the heavy concentration of slaves in plantation districts, in which the majority of the enslaved lived on plantations of between 20 to 150 slaves. This so-called "black belt" (so named because of the rich, dark soil and the domination of enslaved blacks in the population) swept across the southern states from Virginia to Texas. In some of these areas, enslaved blacks outnumbered whites 13 to 1.
Although slavery became the bedrock foundation of Virginia's antebellum plantation economy, it started slowly in the first 50 years of the seventeenth century. In 1700, enslaved Africans numbered only about 8 percent of the colony's population. Most of them worked as agricultural laborers on tobacco farms, often along side white indentured servants. When the supply of indentured servants decreased in the eighteenth century, Virginia planters stepped up the importation of enslaved Africans, and by mid-century 2 of every 5 residents were African or African Americans. Some historians contend that whites brought in more and more enslaved Africans after Bacon's Rebellion in 1676 as a means of cutting back on the influx of white indentured servants from England, whom the planters found difficult to control. By the 1790s, what with the onset of soil exhaustion, many white slaveholders in the state found a thriving market for the offspring of their slaves in the growing cotton regions of the lower South. The state's capital, Richmond became a slave depot for gathering slaves to be transported to slave markets in New Orleans and Natchez, Mississippi. Some of these enslaved people were taken via water from Norfolk while others traveled over land in slave coffles. Although other slave states replaced Virginia as the leading concentration of enslaved people, white Virginians remained deeply committed to the institution of slavery. When the southern slaveholding states seceded from the Union, the city of Richmond became the capital of the Confederacy. The state's western region, which was largely populated by non-slaveholding whites, remained loyal to the Union and became the state of West Virginia in 1863.
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