Alfred H. Stone Collection
Volume: 12

7. Charles M. Croswell, Speech of Hon. Charles M. Croswell, of Lenawee, on the State of the Union, Delivered in the Senate of the State of Michigan, March 2d, A. D. 1863 (Lansing, MI: John A. Kerr & Co., 1863). (28 p.)

Speech urging renewed vigor in prosecuting the war against the rebellion and punishment for the rebels. The speaker quotes Alexander H. Stephens’s “corner-stone” speech, in which Stephens states that the Confederacy is based on the institution of slavery. Mr. Stone has noted this quotation, especially the following passage. “Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas [of those of the founding fathers]; its [the Confederacy’s] 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 white 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” (emphasis in Croswell’s speech).