Alexander H. Stephens Quotes

The supremacy of the white race of the South must be maintained forever, and the domination of the negro race resisted at all points and at all hazards, because the white race is the superior race... This declaration shall run forever with the blood that feeds Anglo-Saxon hearts

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

Blacks were so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.

The United States was created for white people …. When a negro has learned to read, he ceases to work.

We need never have white slaves in the South, because we have black ones. Our citizens, like those of Rome and Athens, are a privileged class. We should train and educate them to deserve the privileges and to perform the duties which society confers on them. Instead, by a low demagoguism depressing their self-respect by discourses on the equality of man, we had better excite their pride by reminding them that they do not fulfill the menial offices which white men do in other countries.

There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

African slaves, the substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it.

They (negroes) had for more than a century before the Declaration of Independence been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic whenever a profit could be made by it.

Slavery ended a long time ago, but the institution of chattel slavery and the ideology of racial subordination that accompanied it have cast a long shadow. I speak here of the history of lynching throughout the country; the racially biased policing and judging in the South under Jim Crow and in the cities of the Northeast, Midwest, and West to which blacks migrated after the First and Second World Wars; and the history of racial apartheid that ended only as a matter of law with the civil-rights movement. It should come as no surprise that in the post–civil rights era, race, far from being peripheral, has been central to the evolution of American social policy.

The black knows his place, and if not, I'll tell him his place.

The writers of the Declaration of Independence were mistaken when they affirmed that all men are created equal. My slaves did not choose their lot in life, neither did we ask for ours; we are created for these places.

The two great divisions of society are not the rich and poor, but white and black. And all the former, the poor as well as the rich, belong to the upper class, and are respected and treated as equals.

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 normal condition.

It is not surprising ... that democracy has worked better in this country than elsewhere. This belief in the equality of all white folks–making skin color the gauge of worth and of citizenship rights–has caused the lowest to strive to become among the highest. Because of this great ferment, America has become the Utopia of the material world; the land of hope and opportunity. Without the transplanted African in their midst to bolster up the illusion, American would have, unquestionably, been a different place; but instead the shine as served as a mudsill upon which all white people alike can stand and reach toward the stars.... Here is the gift par excellence of the Negro to America.

In the combat between the emerging Negroes of the South and the ruling white trash, I sympathize greatly with the Negro.

Stated briefly, the problem confronting the colored peoples of the world is how to live in freedom, peace and security without being invaded, subjugated, expropriated, persecuted and humiliated by Caucasians justifying their actions by the myth of racial superiority..

It is impossible for white men to live with the coloured races without adopting a conviction that…they have the right to command the services of the less civilized.

In speeches to negroes you must remember that argument has no effect upon them: they can only be influenced by their fears, superstition and cupidity. Do not attempt to flatter and persuade them.... Treat them so as to show them you are the superior race, and that their natural position is that of subordination to the white man.

We must keep this a White Man's country. Only by doing this can we be faithful to the foundations laid by our forefathers. This Republic was established by White Men. It was established for White Men. Our forefathers never intended that it should fall into the hands of an inferior race. Every effort to wrest from White Men the management of its affairs in order to transfer it to the control of blacks or any other color, or to permit them to share in its control, is an invasion of our sacred Constitutional prerogatives and a violation of divinely established laws

The general interest both of the white man and of the negroes requires that he should be kept as near to the condition of slavery as possible’

There is an unwillingness on the part of our people, harsh as it may be, for you free colored people to remain with us ... Even when you cease to be slaves, you are far removed from being placed on an equality with the white man ... I cannot alter it if I would. It is a fact

Slavery was a faith-based institution. It was supported by the churches and their ministers who provided a religious and moral justification of the institution.

The South came to adopt a social philosophy wonderfully like that of Germany …. Inequality became the natural order; slavery was accepted as a blessing from heaven; and masters of plantations became the supermen from whom ideas and good reasoning were confidently expected.

Segregation is a disease of white people, not of colored people.

There is not an inn between Washington and Montgomery, a distance of over 1000 miles, that will accommodate me to a bed or a meal. Now then, is there a man on this floor who is so heartless, whose breast is so void of better feelings, as to say that this brutal custom needs no regulation. I hold that it does, and Congress is the body to regulate it.