The Cornerstone Speech, also known as the Cornerstone Address, was an oration given by Alexander H. Stephens, acting Vice President of the Confederate States of America, at the Athenaeum in Savannah, Georgia, on March 21, 1861.
Alexander H. Stephens, the deliverer of the speech
Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician who served as the first and only vice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the 50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented the state of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives before and after the Civil War.
Portrait c. 1860s
Alexander H. Stephens. Oil painting by John White Alexander. Published as cover of Harper's Weekly, 27:145 (March 10, 1883).
President Davis' first cabinet (1861)
Stephens depicted on an 1862 Confederate States $20 banknote