Cornerstone Speech

The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration delivered by Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.

Delivered extemporaneously a few weeks before the Confederate States of America would start the American Civil War by firing on the U.S. Army at Fort Sumter, Stephens' speech applauded white supremacy, defended the enslavement of Africans and African Americans, explained the fundamental differences between the constitutions of the Confederacy and that of the United States, enumerated contrasts between U.S. and Confederate ideologies and beliefs, and laid out the Confederacy's causes for declaring secession.

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