Nature is repeatedly invoked in fascist writing. On March 21, 1861, Alexander H. Stephens, the vice president of the Confederacy, delivered an address that has come to be known as the Cornerstone Speech. In it, he denounces the principles of liberty and equality enshrined in the U.S. Constitution as violations of the laws of nature: Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [of equality]; its 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 superior race is his natural and
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