men of that day was that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence,
the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not
incorporated in the Constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time.
The Constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the
institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly
urged against the constitutional guaranties thus secured, because of the
common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally
wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This
was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon
it fell when "the storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; 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 normal condition.

This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based
upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has
been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in
the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us.
Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was
not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past
generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the
North who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we
justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of
the mind, from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One
of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is
forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises. So with
the antislavery fanatics; their conclusions are right, if their premises
were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he