Rhetorical situation

Speaker

The speaker of the Cornerstone Speech is Alexander Stephens, an American politician and Vice President of the Confederate States. In his speech, Stephens defended slavery and argued that it was the natural condition of African Americans and the cornerstone of the Confederate States of America. 

Stephens discusses the changes made to the new constitution of the Confederacy and says he agrees with some of them and disagrees with others: 

Some of these [changes] I should have preferred not to have seen made; but these, perhaps, meet the cordial approbation of a majority of this audience, if not an overwhelming majority of the people of the Confederacy. Of them, therefore, I will not speak. But other important changes do meet my cordial approbation. They form great improvements upon the old constitution. So, taking the whole ...