markk

I can already tell that I'm going to get a lot out of this book:

Confederates had an expansive vision of their political future; they traded in big ideas. The original American Union, [Alexander] Stevens explained in March 1861, "rested upon the assumption of the equality of races." "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas: its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery is his natural and moral condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great . . . truth." What Stephens and others imagined, in other words, was the first nation-state erected on the modern scientific "truth" of negro inferiority. The Confederate States of America was to be a tribune of racial truth throughout the world.

I wonder how many of those neo-Confederates today who try to argue that secession wasn't about slavery are familiar with Stephens's statement?