SLAVERY AS THE SOUTH SAW IT
[Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens, in War Between the States, page 539.]
The matter of slavery, so called, which was the proximate cause of these irregular movements on both sides, and which ended in the general collision of war, was of infinitely less importance to the seceding States than the recognition of the great principles of constitutional liberty. There was with us no such thing as slavery in the 263 true and proper sense of that word. No people ever lived more devoted to the principles of liberty, secured by free democratic institutions, than were the people of the South. None had ever given stronger proofs of this than they had done. What was called slavery amongst us was but a legal subordination of the African to the Caucasian race. This relation was so regulated by law as to promote, according to the intent and design of the system, the best interests of both races, the black as well as the white, the inferior as well as the superior. Both had rights secured and both had duties imposed. It was a system of reciprocal service and mutual bonds. But even the two thousand million dollars invested in the relations thus established between private capital and the labor of this class of population under system, was but the dust in the balance compared with the vital attributes of the rights of independence and sovereignty on the part of the several States.