"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." — Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 1861
Stephens's speech most directly contradicts which later "Lost Cause" claim about secession?
- A
That Northern abolitionists provoked Southern hostility
- B
That secession was a constitutional remedy
- Ccheck_circle
That the Confederacy seceded primarily over states' rights and tariffs, not slavery
- D
That the Civil War was a contest between competing economic systems
Explanation
The Confederacy's vice president explicitly named slavery and racial hierarchy as the cornerstone of the new government, directly contradicting later Lost Cause narratives that minimized slavery's centrality.