How in the 21st Century, we are still defending the wrongs of the 17th Century, with pride and what we consider valid justifications. It’s still bullshit. Let’s get it straight from the source…
The Source: Alexander H. Stephens — Vice President of the Confederacy, Savannah, Georgia, March 21, 1861 – An excerpt from the complete speech. The additional line breaks are mine to make it easier to read in the online format:
“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. 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. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails.
I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail.
That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail.
The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.”
[Stunned Silence — profound disbelief — is this a real historical document — run back and check the link — Yes. Sit quietly contemplating this in shock. Or cheering a perspective which totally agrees with your own. Negroes are inferior. YEAH — High-five your racist friends.]
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My Response: Whatever you say, Mr. Confederate Vice President. Yes, especially that part about “The Great Truth” and “The Negro is Not Equal to the White Man” part.
You sir, were brilliant in your essay about the truth of slavery in your time. Yours was an idea with saying power, I might add. Profoundly transformative.
If only the Confederacy could have won the war, my ancestors would have stayed honest-to-god SLAVES rather than “Unemployed vagrants who like using the country’s social programs to avoid honest work like good White Americans, who pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” like Sean Hannity says.
And not because I can’t find a job in this “systemically-racist society which has no interest in seeing Black men in positions of authority but instead as signs of moral decay and debauchery which need to be imprisoned as quickly as possible to keep the virtues of White women and a White-sanctioned society safe.” In its way, your idea Mr. Stephens was at least more honest.
It didn’t pretend to use the any kind of legal sophistry to enslave 1.2 million black people under the auspices of a justice system that is just a little bit right of center and with a number of people in it now, greater than the number of slaves freed at the end of the war. The penal-industrial complex is a program right after your own evil heart, sir.
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Imagine what America could have done if we had just kept slavery intact. What a great and prosperous nation we would be.
- We could have sent slaves to fight in World War I and World War II. They would have made poor pilots or tank drivers, but they could fill our entire ranks of poorly armed cannon fodder and bullet magnets. Not to worry, they aren’t people so our real soldiers are much safer as long as they stay behind the slaves.
- We know you would be a bit worried when you gave slaves firearms for the first time. You cover that up by not give them any bullets. Their sole purpose was to absorb bullets and die protecting your White supreme team of actually trained soldiers.
- Poorly motivated, I don’t see any of these slaves being successful on the battlefield. So perhaps we enter these wars with our least capable slaves and lead by white leaders who would be sleeping very lightly.
- In the light of unmotivated slave troopers, perhaps we lose both World War I and World War II and usher in a new era of AXIS/German mastery over the United States and the Allies.
- Without freed Blacks, there is no era of great music, no jazz, no Harlem Renaissance, no rock and roll, no Beatles, the nation is poor, dispirited, and with slavery as our primary means of doing anything, we also don’t have a moon launch or a space race. By the sixties, though we might have thrown off the Nazi war machine, collapsing under its own weight.
- We might have learned our lessons by the time Korea and Vietnam roll around. Slave groups are mixed with White regulars for a more cohesive army which fights better.
- I suspect we are reviled as a slave nation, not a nation with slaves but a nation which was built on the back of slavery, and this ensures America is no country’s friend, afraid our need for new slaves might cause us to visit their nation next.
- As a nation, we are deeply in tune with the inferior nature of people of color and ensure their complete subjugation with regular and structured hangings nationwide to ensure compliance and continued peace.
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There were three other unexpected bright spots inherent to your plan:
- The first is NO interracial dating. Any Black man looking at a white woman for even a second is quickly put to the pyre. Rape of slaves is allowed as long as children are put back into the work pool. Few have difficulties with this. Any children who are too light are immediately put to death. Visual distinction of race is absolute.
- The second is no history of any form of Negro music: Whites grew tired of hearing their non-melodious lamentations and now slaves have their tongues routinely cut away. Plantations are quieter and more effective than ever.
- No damn Mexicans or Canadians in America. With the new Slave built border walls, we are losing fewer slaves to sneaking across into our neighbors to the North and South who have finally learned to mind their own damn business! What society couldn’t see the benefit of that?
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I just want to console you Mr. Stephens, your failed nation’s mission was still successful. It just took a lot longer. You see, without the direct benefit of slavery, you were forced to use a great deal of blood and systematic programs such as:
- Stirring up racial hatred using symbols like the Klan or the Confederate Flag. Not to mention the psychological programming to convince people it’s just a symbol, it doesn’t mean anything.
- Peonage and its trappings of the legal system: along with chain ganging, kept Black men working on farms and mines until they died of old age or murderous levels of abuse.
- Jim Crow : another way of politely telling people “What rights?” Now get to the back of the bus, back of the store, come in through the side entrance, and “don’t you fucking eyeball me, boy.”
- Battling Against Civil rights: or What makes you think you’re free? Now I am going to have to lynch a few thousand of you to make my point.
- The War on Drugs, The War on Poverty, the Prison-Industrial-Complex, the school-to-prison pipeline, all of these expensive programs to create a slave population when we had good-old-fashioned profitable slavery instead.
- Who knew creating modern slavery was going to be so exhausting? Sir, your vision is now the cornerstone of modern systemically-racist America. Even in defeat, you have achieved victory. Well done!
Maybe the new HBO series, Confederacy, will expound on these brilliant ideas right out of your Cornerstone Speech, Mr. Stephens. Looking forward to it. I’m sure you are, too.
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