Response to Alexander Stephens' Speech

Let me begin by stating that I found Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' speech in Savannah to be beyond distasteful, to be beyond disgusting and to be beyond repulsive; in fact I have wracked my extensive vocabulary and have failed to discover a word that adequately describes the utter loathing I feel for Vice President Stephens and his loathsome soliloquy. 

The thing that really grabs my attention is how Stephens makes use of both the Constitution of the United States and the Founding Fathers. He claims that during the time of the writing of the Constitution:

"It [Slavery] 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."

He goes on to reference Jefferson as stating that slavery was the "rock upon which the old Union would split."  Though there is some truth to this interpretation of Jefferson's thoughts on slavery, this is a man after all who said about it "We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other." as well as "believed that it was the responsibility of the state and society to free all slaves." 

In addition, Jefferson intended to roundly condemned the British for the colonial slave trade in his Declaration of Independence, by stating that the Crown "has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere."  However, this last statement was later struck from the Declaration.  Jefferson was continually expressing wishy-washy statements on slavery throughout his entire life, they spanned they full spectrum from racist southerner to supporting colonization to even questing the to justice and viability of the entire slave system.  To use one tiny snippet of this man's writings as an expression of his thoughts on anything, is impossible and does a disservice to both Jefferson and Stephens' audience.  

In addition, though Stephens' takes care to REPEATEDLY overemphasize the support that the Constitution gives for the existence of slavery, he never quotes a single word from the Constitution.  Might it be because, other than counting slaves as 3/5 of a person in order to help determine the number of Representatives a state will have, the Constitution is rather mute on the subject.  It is chock full, on the other hand, of statements, phrases and Amendments guaranteeing personal liberty.  For example, the Preamble:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Also, Article 1's intent to prevent abuses by Congress:

"The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it."

 In addition, there is a section in Article 4, which is designed to insure that the citizens of all states are treated equally:

"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."


Finally, there are the Amendments.  Amendment One is the most obvious one, guaranteeing a whole multitude of personal rights:


Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Then there is the 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The 9th and 10th Amendments also serve to protect people's rights, stating that anything not listed in the Constitution belongs to the people and that just because something isn't listed in the Constitution DOESN'T necessarily mean that the people are deprived of those rights. 

In short, the Constitution speak a whole HELL of a lot about person liberty and individual freedom, both freedom "from" and freedom "for".  What it doesn't speak about is slavery.  Does anyone here not find it rather puzzling then that Alexander Stephens chooses to use this venerable document to "support" slavery???



It is really easy then to say that the NUMBER ONE thing I took away from this speech was Stephens' absolute fixation with slavery from his need to justify its existence and thereby justifying the South's act of secession.  He really is downright obsessed with being right at all cost.  I would feel sad for someone so pathetic that he can't handle ever being wrong, if I wasn't so bloody pissed off at him!