Ottumwa weekly courier., 1878-05-15
A Record Worthy Of remembrance


The following states vividly and
fully what the result of rebel
lion would be, and also the true and
only cause for rebellion:
Alexander Stephens, the Vice-Pres-
ident of the Confederacy, from it's or
ganization until its humiliation, in
his speech before the Georgia Seces-
sion Convention, in 1860, said:
"This step (Secession) once taken
can never be recalled, and all the bale
full and whitening consequences that
must follow will rest on the Conven-
ton for all coming time. We will see
our lovely South desolated by the de-
mon Of war, which this act of yours
will inevitably invite and call forth
What reasons can you give
to your fellow sufferers or to the ma
tions of the earth to justify it? What
right has the North assailed? Whit
interest of the South has been invad-
ed? What justice has been denied?
And what claim founded in right and
justice has been withheld? Can either
of you to-day name one government
al act of wrong of which the South
has right to complain? l challenge
the answer. When we of the South
demanded the slave trade, or the i'm
pOrtation of Africans for the cultiva-
ton of our lands, did not the North
yield the right for twenty years?
When we asked three-fifths represent
alton i'm Congress for our slaves, was
it not granted by the North? When
we asked for the return OfOur fugitive
slaves, did we not get the Fugitive
Slave law of 1850? When we asked
that more territory be added that we
might spread the institution of slave
ry, has not the North yielded to our
demand in giving us Louisiana, Mis-
sissippi, Florida, Arkansas, Missouri,
and Texas? and out of the latter they
have guaranteed us the right to carve
four more states. Let me warn you
that by this unwise and impolitic act
of Secession you may lose all, and
have your last slave Wrenched from
you by stern military rule, or by the
DEGREES of universal emancipation
which may be reasonably expected to
follow your mad act.'
But the mad act was passed, and
out the South rushed. Mr.. Stephens
followed his State" and was made
Vice president Of the Shareholders
Confederacy. On the 2lst of March,
1861, he delivered in Savannah, his
famous cornerstone speech" in ex-
planatiOn and vindicatiOn of the Con-
federate Constitution, from which we
make this extract:
''The new Constitution has put at
rest forever the agitating questions
relating to our peculiar institution
African Slavery as it exists among us
is the proper status ofthe negro i'm our
form of civilization. This was the
immediate cause of the late rupture
and present revolution. jefferson, in
his forecast, had anticipated this
crock upon which the old Union
would split" He was right. The
prevailing ideas entertained by him
and most of the leading statesmen a,
the time of the formation of the old
Constitution, were that the enslave.
ment of the African was in violation
of the laws Of nature; that it was
wrong in principle, socially, morally
and politically. Our new
Government is founded upon exactly
the opposite idea; it's foundations arr
laid, its cornerstone rests upon tht
great truth that the negro is not The
equal of the white man in rights
that Observation-Disclosures to the SUI
periOr race-is his natural and norma
condition. This, our new Govern
ment, is the first in the long histor,
of the world based upon this grea
physical and moral truth. This stone
slavery which was rejected by tn,
first builders, 'is become the chic
stone Of the conner in our new edi
fice."