We ask your attention under this head to the declaration of their
Vice-President, Stephens, in that remarkable speech delivered on the
21st of March, 1861, at Savannah, Georgia, wherein he declares the
object and purposes of the new Confederacy. It is one of the most
extraordinary papers which our century has produced. I quote from the
_verbatim_ report in the "Savannah Republican" of the address as
it was delivered in the Athen?um of that city, on which occasion, says
the newspaper from which I copy, "Mr. Stephens took his seat amid a
burst of enthusiasm and applause such as the Athen?um has never had
displayed within its walls within the recollection 'of the oldest
inhabitant,'"
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 among 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 a 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.
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