The Cornerstone Speech And Judge Baldwin, Original Source Material?

[Johnny_Reb_1865]

I'm having a bit of a problem involving Alexander Stephens's so-called "Cornerstone Speech" and Judge Henry Baldwin's 1833 decision in the case of Johnson vs Tompkins.

I was told that Stephans was engaging in hyperbole and was mentioning Judge Baldwin's opinion verbatim.

Yet I can't find Judge Baldwin's words online nor can I find the original source of the quotation for Alexander Stephens and his speech.

Any suggestions or anything anyone would like to add?

 

[SSVilla]

The cornerstone speech in its entirety can easily be found here:

Cornerstone Speech

In his March 21, 1861, Cornerstone Speech, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens presents what he believes are the reasons for what he termed was...

www.battlefields.org

If you want to understand Stephens, it's best to read the speech in its entirety since he was explaining the differences between the U.S. Constitution as it then existed, contrasting it with the adopted confederate constitution. He stated:

"This new constitution or form of government, constitutes the subject to which your attention will be partly invited."
….
"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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

—————
If you want to read the old legal decision you cite (which I have never read) I am sure the help of a local librarian can be enlisted to assist you in accessing a legal search software like Westlaw, where you can locate that decision if it exists.

 

[Library Lady]

Perhaps this will be of help to you.

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0013.f.cas/0013.f.cas.0840.2.pdf

 

[JerryD]

I'm having a bit of a problem involving Alexander Stephens's so-called "Cornerstone Speech" and Judge Henry Baldwin's 1833 decision in the case of Johnson vs Tompkins.

I was told that Stephans was engaging in hyperbole and was mentioning Judge Baldwin's opinion verbatim.

Yet I can't find Judge Baldwin's words online nor can I find the original source of the quotation for Alexander Stephens and his speech.

Any suggestions or anything anyone would like to add?

I'd be interested in what you come up with. In reading Stephen's Cornerstone Speech it does not strike me as hyperbole, but as an honest attempt to differentiate between the US and CSA Constitutions.

 

[DanSBHawk]

Perhaps this will be of help to you.

https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0013.f.cas/0013.f.cas.0840.2.pdf

The relevant passage is on page 24 of the pdf. It seems obvious that the judge is using "cornerstone" in a completely different context than Stephens later used it in his speech.

The judge is saying that the original compromises and concessions that were made with the southern states concerning slavery were the foundation, or "corner stones" of the government.

Stephens in his cornerstone speech, on the other hand, is saying that racial inequality is the cornerstone of the new confederate government.

 

[SSVilla]

The decision is written in complex "legalese" of the mid nineteenth century that is a bit obscure and difficult to understand.

"The supreme court declares that the constitution of the United States would never have been formed or assented to by the southern states, without some provision for securing their property in slaves. Look at the first article, and you will see that slaves are not only property as chattels, but political property, which confers the highest and most sacred political rights of the states, on the inviolability of which the very existence of this government depends. The apportionment among the several states comprising this union, of their representatives in congress. The apportionment of direct taxes among the several states. The number of, electoral votes for president and vice president, to which they shall respectively be entitled. The basis of these rights is, "according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and, excluding Indians, not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons." So that for all these great objects, five slaves are, in federal numbers, equal to three freemen.

You thus see that in protecting the rights of a master in the property of a slave, the constitution guarantees the highest rights of the respective states, of which each has a right to avail itself, and which each enjoys in proportion to the number of slaves within its boundaries. This was a concession to the southern states; but it was not without its equivalent to the other states, especially the small ones—the basis of representation in the senate of the United States was perfect equality, each being entitled to two senators—Delaware had same weight in the senate as Virginia. Thus you see that the foundations of the govern ment are laid, and rest on the rights of property in slaves—the whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner stones—if federal numbers cease to be respected or held sacred in questions of property or government, the rights of the states must disappear and the government and union dissolve by the prostration of its laws before the usurped authority of individuals.2"​

The judge then made reference to the existence of rights which predated the U.S. Constitution:

"The constitution of the state or union is not the source of these rights, or the others to which we have referred you, they existed in their plenitude before any constitutions, which do not create but protect and secure them against any violation by the legislatures or courts, in making, expounding or administering laws."​

————
At any rate, the Judge was writing in strict legal sense about whether the U.S. Constitution recognized slavery. It held that it did, but not through any express proclamation or declaration, but instead it was implicitly recognized as an institution that predated it (1.) through the "concessions" to Southern states in the representation and apportionment clause, (a 'cornerstone' of the distribution of political power), and (2.) because the Constitution made enforceable and protected some rights that predated it.

————
However the U.S. Constitution made no provision concerning the future of slavery or it's existence in future territory. This continued to be a political issue. Concerning that political issue is that there was a great political divide. Stephens saw the origins of that divide in the admission that slavery was morally wrong.

"The prevailing ideas entertained by [Jefferson] 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."​

"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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."​

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

I'd be interested in what you come up with. In reading Stephen's Cornerstone Speech it does not strike me as hyperbole, but as an honest attempt to differentiate between the US and CSA Constitutions.

I don't think it matters. People, especially politicians, should be held to their hyperbole.

The decision is written in complex "legalese" of the mid nineteenth century that is a bit obscure and difficult to understand.

"The supreme court declares that the constitution of the United States would never have been formed or assented to by the southern states, without some provision for securing their property in slaves."

Sounds like something that could be used to argue America was founded on a mistake, even if that's not what the judge meant.

 

[RedRover]

Baldwin's decision in Tompkins winds up saying the fugitive status of Jack would have been no different had he been a free indentured man versus a slave, under the US Constitution's rendition clause where his "service or labor" under the laws of a State was owed to a master. That the fact under a State law that master was his "owner" under the State laws did not change that fact, and where it might be that injustice was involved, it was the doing of the lawmakers of States whose acts tolerated slavery (and recognized it as property in man, binding upon the slave), but he found it also unjust to oppose any such injustice by unconstitutional modes.

It might aid in understanding the decision too, by noting Baldwin's observation to the jury in the case that slavery was yet legal in the State of Pennsylvania.

There were very few slaves there at that time, but it was only in 1850 that the State of Pennsylvania abolished it.


Reaction to Baldwin's statements in the decision, including his slavery as a "corner stone" claim, varied. In the North it outraged and fanned the flames of abolitionism. In the South, some took it to heart.

Also, his decision is not necessarily written in "legalese." Baldwin himself admitted his inclination to indulge unique conceptions he admitted were "peculiar," and by some accounts was afflicted by a generally unsound disposition. Regarding his situation in the period of his Tompkins decision in the circuit court, it has been noted in 1832 that he was having some difficulties which came to a head, and afflicted him terribly the same year as his "corner stone" statements:

In April, 1838 Baldwin was admitted to the American Philosophical Society....




After the war, in 1865, Alexander H. Stephens downplayed his Savannah cornerstone speech of 1861 as an extemporaneous and did not admit that he was regarding legal questions or the Confederacy's organization as revolutionary; but speaking to the crowd the public sentiment of the "statesmen, philosophers and philanthropists" of the Confederacy in its component States, which they had for some years accepted and promoted as a philosophy that was alien to the founders of the US Constitution. And the Confederate Constitution removed the concern of incompatibility and promoted the contemporary philosophical ideals of the South without altering existing laws on the subject (In 1861 the CS Government adopted all US laws to November, 1860 as statutes). From the published edition of his 1865 diary (1910, pgs. 272-274).

So Stephens says he was just paraphrasing the prevailing philosophy, which had come to the fore over the previous decades.

For example in 1835 Governor McDuffie of South Carolina's message to his State declared slavery a cornerstone of that State's republican form of government:

In 1837 in the US Senate, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina declared of slavery in the States that it was truly republican in nature in spite of the widely held conceptions...

Subsequently Governor Hammond of South Carolina (1842-44), opined in a letter of 1845, which was published as a pro slavery argument in the press: contending that the Declaration of Independence was merely a philosophical statement by Thomas Jefferson (which he misquotes) based on erroneous and outdated principles (rather than the "unanimous declaration of the...United States of America")

The above comments were widely published in the papers in 1835 to 1845; pro and con. Also paraphrased more or less in the 1850s. For example, from the speech of Virginia Representative Jeremiah Morton on the floor of the House of Representatives, February 6, 1850: he seems to reference Justice Baldwin's 1833 decision in the Tompkins case, as defining slavery the "corner stone", etc.

From 1854, the Richmond Whig and Advertiser, opined that approving abolition of slavery in the Territories was "revolutionary" and was a strike upon the "cornerstone of the federal compact."

And during the secession crisis, on the floor of the Senate, by Senator Henry Wilson of the State of Massachusetts, February 21, 1861:

So, the Southern political interest in defending the establishment of slavery in the Territories was essentially lost in the election of November, 1860. Then secession and the Southern Confederacy formed. Next compare to Stephens' cornerstone speech of March 21, 1861, which largely paraphrases the above: and regards ideals...

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [as the Declaration of Independence of 1776]; 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. 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.

So Stephens, like Hammond in 1845 suggests that the Declaration of Independence was outdated by modern science and philosophy. From Calhoun in 1837 the "positive good" of Slavery for both races, etc.

Stephens, like Calhoun, etc., admits the above ideals were foreign to the Revolutionary generation's and the South's conceptions of republican forms of government until a short time before. For example, new compared to the ideas of James Madison, where in his notes on the inefficiency of the Articles of Confederation in April, 1787, what he perceived the prevailing republican theory of government, and slavery's incompatibility with it.

Subsequently, from Federalist paper number 43, February, 1788, beyond philosophy, Madison observes the US Constitution's advantage is the maintenance of "republican" forms of Government in the States, at the expense of "anti republican" forms of government which are attempted in the States to supplant them:

The pro-slavery comments of McDuffie, etc. were opining that slavery was not anti-republican, and not a relic, but a corner stone of their State's "republican" system of Government; and thus defensible under the US Constitution's provision to defend republican forms of Government in the States. In his corner stone speech of 1861, Stephens claims the Southern Confederacy's new Constitution, was philosophically compatible with the "republican" philosophy of slavery advanced in recent decades in Southern States politics. In other words a philosophical "revolution" in the theory of republican government, with slavery a cognized as a contemporary and internal component rather than anterior to and exterior to it.



Before 1861, Stephens had mentioned "corner stones" before. For example in 1855, in an Augusta speech running for Congress to oppose the "Know Nothings" and their religious prejudices.

 

[Johnny_Reb_1865]

Baldwin's decision in Tompkins winds up saying the fugitive status of Jack would have been no different had he been a free indentured man versus a slave, under the US Constitution's rendition clause where his "service or labor" under the laws of a State was owed to a master. That the fact under a State law that master was his "owner" under the State laws did not change that fact, and where it might be that injustice was involved, it was the doing of the lawmakers of States whose acts tolerated slavery (and recognized it as property in man, binding upon the slave), but he found it also unjust to oppose any such injustice by unconstitutional modes.

View attachment 533745

It might aid in understanding the decision too, by noting Baldwin's observation to the jury in the case that slavery was yet legal in the State of Pennsylvania.

View attachment 533769

There were very few slaves there at that time, but it was only in 1850 that the State of Pennsylvania abolished it.


Reaction to Baldwin's statements in the decision varied. In the North it outraged and fanned the flames of abolitionism. In the South, some took it to heart.

Also, his decision is not necessarily written in "legalese." Baldwin himself admitted his inclination to indulge unique conceptions he admitted were "peculiar," and by some accounts was afflicted by a generally unsound disposition. Regarding his situation in the period of his Tompkins decision in the circuit court, it has been noted in 1832 that he was having some difficulties which came to a head, and afflicted him terribly the same year as his "corner stone" statements:

View attachment 533772



In April, 1838 Baldwin was admitted to the American Philosophical Society....




After the war, in 1865, Alexander H. Stephens downplayed his Savannah cornerstone speech of 1861 as an extemporaneous and did not admit that he was regarding legal questions or the Confederacy's organization as revolutionary; but speaking to the crowd the public sentiment of the "statesmen, philosophers and philanthropists" of the Confederacy in its component States, which they had for some years accepted and promoted as a philosophy that was alien to the founders of the US Constitution. And the Confederate Constitution removed the concern of incompatibility and promoted the contemporary philosophical ideals of the South without altering existing laws on the subject (In 1861 the CS Government adopted all US laws to November, 1860 as statutes). From the published edition of his 1865 diary (1910, pgs. 272-274).

View attachment 533737
View attachment 533738
View attachment 533739
View attachment 533743
View attachment 533741


So Stephens says he was just paraphrasing the prevailing philosophy, which had come to the fore over the previous decades.

For example in 1835 Governor McDuffie of South Carolina's message to his State declared slavery a cornerstone of that State's republican form of government:

View attachment 533746
View attachment 533747

In 1837 in the US Senate, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina declared of slavery in the States that it was truly republican in nature in spite of the widely held conceptions...

View attachment 533768


Subsequently Governor Hammond of South Carolina (1842-44), opined in a letter of 1845, which was published as a pro slavery argument in the press: contending that the Declaration of Independence was merely a philosophical statement by Thomas Jefferson (which he misquotes) based on erroneous and outdated principles (rather than the "unanimous declaration of the...United States of America")

View attachment 533749
View attachment 533750
View attachment 533751
View attachment 533752

The above comments were widely published in the papers in 1835 to 1845; pro and con. Also paraphrased more or less in the 1850s. For example, from the speech of Virginia Representative Jeremiah Morton on the floor of the House of Representatives, February 6, 1850: he seems to reference Justice Baldwin's 1833 decision in the Tompkins case, as defining slavery the "corner stone", etc.

View attachment 533763

From 1854, the Richmond Whig and Advertiser, opined that approving abolition of slavery in the Territories was "revolutionary" and was a strike upon the "cornerstone of the federal compact."

View attachment 533764

And during the secession crisis, on the floor of the Senate, by Senator Henry Wilson of the State of Massachusetts, February 21, 1861:


View attachment 533767

So, the Southern political interest in defending the establishment of slavery in the Territories was essentially lost in the election of November, 1860. Then secession and the Southern Confederacy formed. Next compare to Stephens' cornerstone speech of March 21, 1861, which largely paraphrases the above: and regards ideals...

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [as the Declaration of Independence of 1776]; 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. 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.

So Stephens, like Hammond in 1845 suggests that the Declaration of Independence was outdated by modern science and philosophy. From Calhoun in 1837 the "positive good" of Slavery for both races, etc.

Stephens, like Calhoun, etc., admits the above ideals were foreign to the Revolutionary generation's and the South's conceptions of republican forms of government until a short time before. For example, new compared to the ideas of James Madison, where in his notes on the inefficiency of the Articles of Confederation in April, 1787, what he perceived the prevailing republican theory of government, and slavery's incompatibility with it.

View attachment 533755
View attachment 533756


Subsequently, from Federalist paper number 43, February, 1788, beyond philosophy, Madison observes the US Constitution's advantage is the maintenance of "republican" forms of Government in the States, at the expense of "anti republican" forms of government which are attempted in the States to supplant them:

View attachment 533753
View attachment 533754


The pro-slavery comments of McDuffie, etc. were opining that slavery was not anti-republican, and not a relic, but a corner stone of their State's "republican" system of Government; and thus defensible under the US Constitution's provision to defend republican forms of Government in the States. In his corner stone speech of 1861, Stephens claims the Southern Confederacy's new Constitution, was philosophically compatible with the "republican" philosophy of slavery advanced in recent decades in Southern States politics. In other words a philosophical "revolution" in the theory of republican government, with slavery a cognized as a contemporary and internal component rather than anterior to and exterior to it.



Before 1861, Stephens had mentioned "corner stones" before. For example in 1855, in an Augusta speech running for Congress to oppose the "Know Nothings" and their religious prejudices.

View attachment 533760
View attachment 533761

Fantastic breakdown RedRover!
I was aware of what Stephens had said in his personal diary just not the over all big picture of why.

 

[Johnny_Reb_1865]

The cornerstone speech in its entirety can easily be found here:

Cornerstone Speech

In his March 21, 1861, Cornerstone Speech, Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens presents what he believes are the reasons for what he termed was...

www.battlefields.org

If you want to understand Stephens, it's best to read the speech in its entirety since he was explaining the differences between the U.S. Constitution as it then existed, contrasting it with the adopted confederate constitution. He stated:

"This new constitution or form of government, constitutes the subject to which your attention will be partly invited."
….
"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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."

—————
If you want to read the old legal decision you cite (which I have never read) I am sure the help of a local librarian can be enlisted to assist you in accessing a legal search software like Westlaw, where you can locate that decision if it exists.

The American Battlefield Trust is a great website but they still don't show any source for where the speech came from. They merely just quote the speech and assign it to Stephens. This isn't to say however that it's not Stephens who said it. Or that I doubt it's authenticity.

I was looking to see it written in his own words published either in his personal recollections or in his papers that are filed away. Such as his personal diary which I have read myself. In it he suggests that he hurriedly looked over a newspaper reporter's notes and commented that they were "very imperfect".

 

[SSVilla]

The American Battlefield Trust is a great website but they still don't show any source for where the speech came from. They merely just quote the speech and assign it to Stephens. This isn't to say however that it's not Stephens who said it. Or that I doubt it's authenticity.

I was looking to see it written in his own words published either in his personal recollections or in his papers that are filed away. Such as his personal diary which I have read myself. In it he suggests that he hurriedly looked over a newspaper reporter's notes and commented that they were "very imperfect".

He could have easily corrected his statements back then through the press, if he was misrepresented or misquoted. Letters from someone as prominent as him would be printed.

His comments 4 years later in his diary aren't going to be more accurate than notes taken contemporaneous with the speech. The passage of time will make the memory uncertain over something said 4 years prior. It's noteworthy that he also admitted he looked the notes over and approved them. Regardless of his feelings about it later, if there was something of substance to correct, prior to publication was that time.

From this other source https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-corner-stone-speech/ I found a book available in the archives online that contains it in published form

It starts at page 717. I hope that helps out.

Alexander H. Stephens, in public and private : with letters and speeches, before, during, and since the war : Cleveland, Henry : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Includes frontispiece and engravings by W.H. Dougal, J.C. McRae, and J. McGoffin

archive.org

 

[wausaubob]

Stephens concerned himself about the philosophical change regarding slavery. However there were material changes that were important. The Mid-Atlantic states of NY, PA and NJ had abolished slavery. There were still a few slaves left in New Jersey. But Delaware was not far behind in reducing the number of slaves. Out of state sales of slaves were already illegal in Maryland. The British empire had abolished slavery and the influence of British thought was increasing after 1844. There was a major crackdown in the international slave trade during the 1850's and both northern parties were disinclined to argue with the British on that matter because British investment in the US was critically important.
Stephens could pretend to not notice, but when California and Oregon were admitted as paid labor states the numerical end of slavery was already in sight.

 

[wausaubob]

The critical issue was not abolition. As long at the southern states kept the peace, slavery was safe. The real issue was slavery becoming rapidly expensive in the 4 border states and Virginia. The real issue was the likelihood of a rapid sell off southward which would deflate the price bubble on slave labor that arose in the 1850s.

 

[wausaubob]

Stephens is also ignoring the financial and political impact of the slave auction March 2, 3, 1859 in Savannah.

 

[wausaubob]

How does secession improve the situation? If the southern states successfully secede they have Mexico to the south and the US to the north. In the US the anti-slavery party is most likely going to abolish slavery even over the objection of any slave holding areas that remained in the US. The boundary between freedom and slavery moves south by hundreds of miles and retrieving escaped enslaved men and women becomes nearly impossible. A war between the Confederacy and the US over western territories is nearly inevitable. And the sympathies of the modern world would probably lie with the US.

 

[wausaubob]

The system was most likely crumbling. A brief study of Colonel Lee's problems in trying to manage the Custis plantations reveals the difficulties. The entire system was being maintained due to the postwar fabric boom in England and France. But the world demand for factory cloth was not unlimited. The end of the fabric boom was postponed by the Civil War. But by 1867 it occurred anyway.

 

[wausaubob]

The hidden issue was how much credit conditions were going to change once the US economy recovered. The northern railroads and the northern cities could borrow money and pay their bills. Once the US economy recovered the northern investors would have much safer options than financing the outfitters that re-equipped the plantations year by year. As Colonel Lee found out, and as the Butler slave auction demonstrated, much of the external wealth of the cotton region was financed by mountains of debt. British investors were uninterested in investing in railroads in Texas as long as Texas retained slavery. But they were interested in taking risks on Illinois railroads and were willing to come to the US to inspect their investments.

 

[19thGeorgia]

The American Battlefield Trust is a great website but they still don't show any source for where the speech came from. They merely just quote the speech and assign it to Stephens. This isn't to say however that it's not Stephens who said it. Or that I doubt it's authenticity.

I was looking to see it written in his own words ...

Stephens did not write the speech. It was written down by a news reporter.

 

[SSVilla]

Stephens did not write the speech. It was written down by a news reporter.

I think what you meant to maybe clarify, is that it wasn't a prepared read speech.

 

[lelliott19]

As published in the Savannah Republican reprinted in the Columbus Daily Times. (Columbus, GA), March 27, 1861, 2.

<end of excerpt>
The transcription of the speech, as recorded by the reporter of the Savannah Republican, may be read in its entirety here