How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America

by Heather Cox Richardson

The Confederate States of America was based on the principle that the Founders were wrong.

The “cornerstone” of the Confederacy, as Vice President Alexander Stephens put it, was that “the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”