THE CONVENIENT LIE : The Cornerstone, The Context, and The Convenient Verdict
Part Four of Mindy Esposito's excellent series
Part Four of Mindy Esposito’s excellent series
(Mindy Esposito) - There is one speech. Just one. That is what a hundred and sixty years of moral condemnation rests on. One extemporaneous address by one man, imperfectly recorded, later repudiated by the man who gave it, delivered nineteen days after Congress offered to protect slavery permanently in the Constitution. One speech. Used every single day to silence an entire people and their descendants. It deserves the scrutiny it has never received.
WHAT THE CORNERSTONE SPEECH ACTUALLY WAS
March 21, 1861. Savannah, Georgia. Alexander Stephens was not delivering a formal policy address to the Confederate government. He was not reading from a prepared text. He had no official mandate to define the Confederate cause for history. He was a politician speaking off the cuff to a local audience after a long and exhausting journey. He was talking to a crowd. That is what the prosecution’s entire case rests on.
Stephens had served in Congress for years. He had been a Unionist. He had opposed secession. He became…
https://southernvindicator1.substack.com/p/the-cornerstone-speech