March 19, 1861; Richmond Enquirer
Mr. A.H. Stephens, Vice President of the Southern Confederacy, reached Atlanta from Montgomery on Monday last, and was received with every demonstration of respect, admiration and confidence on the part of the people of Fulton and the adjoining counties. The Atlanta “Confederacy” says: “Expectation was on the tip-toe and the whole population were out to meet their favorite. We do not remember ever before to have seen so large an assemblage of our citizens brought together. The numerous military companies in full dress, and the fire departments with gay uniforms and brilliant torches were out in full force.”
We publish a synopsis of Mr. Stephens’ speech on the occasion, as given in the “Confederacy,” knowing that it will be perused with interest and satisfaction by our readers.
Mr. Stephens, let it be borne in mind, occupies the second place officially in the new Confederacy; a position to which he was called by the Congress thereof, and by their constituents of all parties. The people of Georgia, and other people who know him, acknowledge the fidelity of the picture of A. H. Stephens as drawn in his memorable Congressional canvass of 1855, by an enthusiastic friend and admirer–thus:
“Stephens is small in stature, weighing only 100 pounds, sometimes more, sometimes less; but he is the best illustration of multum in parvo to be found anywhere. There is much contained beneath his diminutive exterior–an intellectual and moral treasure which you will rarely find in a clay-tenement either large or small. He unites the eloquence of a Randolph with the simplicity and purity of a Macon.”
Such, we say, is the estimation in which Mr. Stephens is held by his Southern neighbors and friends. Thus introduced and endorsed, his statement of the present and his opinion of the future of the Southern Confederacy, cannot fail to have its effect upon the border States and upon reflecting men in other portions of the old Union. But we will no longer withhold Mr. Stephens’ speech from the reader:
Mr. Stephens was presented to the acres of enthusiastic admirers who stood there to do him honor, by our worthy Mayor in a few very appropriate words of welcome.
In response Mr. Stephens excused himself, from his state of weariness and fatigue, from making any very extended remarks, but said he desired to notice an allusion of the Mayor to the labors of the Congress at Montgomery. –With marked emphasis, Mr. Stephens said that in all the public bodies in which he had ever served the country, and in his experience they had not been few, he never met as many men combining the same exalted talent with as much of devoted, unselfish patriotism. Their whole aim seemed to be to see the right and pursue it. This was his opinion, but very soon we would have the opportunity of seeing what had been done and passing upon it ourselves. He ventured to say, that the history of the world did not present such another social phenomenon as the existing revolution in the Cotton States. A vast empire was divided–a government thrown off, a new system inaugurated in juxtaposition to the old, and without a drop of blood, the slightest social disorder or physical suffering. All we had to do, said the speaker, to perpetuate this happy state of things, was to be true to our own honor and fame. We were once Unionists but now we are all Secessionists, and if we continued to display to all the world the proper union of hearts and purpose, there could be no such word as fail for us. But, in most eloquent tones he declared, if dissensions springing from venal and selfish ambitions, if unreasoning and captious fault finding should discourage the true friends of Southern liberty, he could prophesy no good for us.
Mr. Stephens said that he had once venerated the old Constitution under which he had been born, and did still feel a great respect for it. But upon a dispassionate comparison of the two Constitutions, he did not hesitate to declare that the new was an improvement on the old. He went on to state that he thought the mode appropriating money when brought into the Treasury by taxation, as provided for by the Constitution of the Confederate States, a decided improvement on that of any government whatever. The labor, he said, was not so much to get money into the public chest as to protect it from misappropriation after it was raised. By the new Constitution not a dollar could be drawn from the public Treasury, unless by a two-thirds vote of Congress. An exception to this rule was only made when the President should report to Congress that pressing public necessity and exigency called for it. Another grand difference between the old and the new Constitution was this, said Mr. Stephens, in the old Constitution the Fathers looked upon the fallacy of the equality of the races as underlaying the foundations of republican liberty. Jefferson, Madison and Washington, and many others, were tender of the word slave in the organic law, and all looked forward to the time when the institution of slavery should be removed from our midst as a trouble and a stumbling block. The delusion could not be traced in any component parts of the Southern Constitution. In that instrument we solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians, that all men, of all races, were equal, and we had made African inequality and subordination, and the equality of white men, the chief corner stone of the Southern Republic. With an honest administration of a government so founded, Mr., Stephens said, the world was yet to see in us the model nation of history. Restore peace, set our people quietly to work out their destiny from this point of departure, and we would go on from one step of glorious development to another. We would expand Southward and Westward, to the East and to the North (God forbid, said a gallant Secessionist,) until there would be no complaint about territory.
Mr. Stephens said before he closed he would make a prediction that some might take in the way of good news if they wished. He gave it as his opinion, that before Saturday night we would hear of the surrender of Fort Sumter. What the labors and science of General Beauregard had done in convincing Major Anderson that his position was not impregnable he would not undertake to say. But let this prediction turn out as it may, of one thing we might rest assured, that the Forts would be given up. or they would be taken away. Mr. Stephens seemed to be satisfied that we should have a peaceable separation from the North, but he said our general preparation and readiness to meet a different result might have had a great deal to do with such a consummation. He said we all desired peace–none of us felt that war and its sufferings and distractions were light things, but yet we were prepared for war. After invoking a fraternal and cordial union of all hearts in defence and support of the Honor and Freedom of our people, in most touching language, Mr. Stephens closed by proposing three cheers for the Confederate States of America.
Mr. Keitt, of South Carolina, it was whispered around, was in the throng, and soon a thousand voices called him out. Well did this gallant and eloquent gentleman sustain the report we had all received of his power as a speaker. He rendered a tribute to our Vice President of unsurpassable eloquence, and gave us, in his own unselfish and noble devotedness to the cause of Southern Independence, an earnest of what his State would do in approval of the recent labors of the Congress at Montgomery.
The immense crowd dispersed at half past eight, cheered and elated with what they had heard of the brightening prospects of our beloved country.
A few old friends pressed in to pay their respects to the distinguished speakers, but all seemed to think that it would not be proper to fatigue them by friendly attentions. Our guests left by the nine o’clock train of the Georgia Railroad.