Alexander Stephens

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Alexander Stephens
Vice President of the Confederate States
In office February 18, 1861 – May 10, 1865
President	Jefferson Davis
Preceded by	(none)
Succeeded by	(none)
Born	February 11, 1812 Taliaferro County, Georgia
Died	March 4, 1883 Atlanta, Georgia
Political party	Whig, Democratic
Profession	Lawyer

This is an article about the Confederate Vice President. For the shipbuilding company, see Alexander Stephen and Sons

Alexander Hamilton Stephens (February 11, 1812 – March 4, 1883) was Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 Congressional career 3 Civil War 4 Postbellum career 5 See also 6 References 7 External links

[edit] Early life and career

Stephens was born on a farm near Crawfordville, Taliaferro County, Georgia to Andrew B. and Margaret Grier Stephens. He grew up poor and acquired his education through the generosity of several benefactors, one of whom was the Presbyterian minister Alexander Hamilton Webster. It was out of deepest respect for this loving mentor that Stephens adopted Webster's middle name, Hamilton, as his own. Stephens attended the Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in Athens, where he was roommates with Crawford W. Long. He graduated at the top of his class in 1832.

After an unhappy couple of years teaching school, he pursued legal studies, passed the bar in 1834, and began a successful career as a lawyer in Crawfordville. During his thirty-two years of practice, he gained (among other things) a reputation for being a capable defender of the wrongfully accused. Of all his defendants charged with capital crimes, not one of them was executed. One notable case was the trial of a black slave woman who was accused of attempted murder. Despite the circumstantial evidence presented against her, Stephens volunteered to defend her in court and successfully persuaded the jury to acquit the woman, thus saving her life.

As his wealth increased, Stephens began acquiring both land and slaves. By the time of the Civil War, Stephens owned 34 slaves and several thousand acres. In the early 1830s, Stephens began what became a lifelong career in public service in 1836 when he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He served there until moving on to the Georgia Senate in 1842.

[edit] Congressional career

In 1842, Stephens was elected as a Whig to the United States House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mark A. Cooper. He was reelected to the Twenty-ninth through Thirty-first Congresses, as a Unionist to the Thirty-second Congress, as a Whig to the Thirty-third Congress and as a Democrat to the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses, serving October 2, 1843 to March 3, 1859.

As a national lawmaker during the crucial two decades before the Civil War, Stephens was involved in all the major sectional battles. He began as a moderate defender of slavery, but later accepted all of the prevailing Southern rationales used to defend the institution.

Stephens quickly rose to prominence as one of the leading Southern Whigs in the House. He supported the annexation of Texas in 1845. Along with his fellow Whigs, he vehemently opposed the Mexican War. He was an equally vigorous opponent of the Wilmot Proviso, which would have barred the extension of slavery into territories acquired by the United States during the war with Mexico. Stephens along with fellow Georgia congressman Robert Toombs, worked diligently to secure the election of Zachary Taylor in 1848. Both were chagrined and angered when Taylor proved less than pliable on aspects of the Compromise of 1850. The death of Taylor removed the major barrier to passage of the compromise measures. Stephens and Toombs both supported the Compromise of 1850, and then returned to Georgia to secure support for the measures at home. Both men were instrumental in the drafting and approval of the Georgia Platform which rallied unionists throughout the Deep South.

By this time, Stephens had departed the ranks of the Whig party—its northern wing proving inimical to what he regarded as non-negotiable Southern interests. Back in Georgia, Stephens, Toombs, and Democratic congressman Howell Cobb formed the Constitutional Union party. The party overwhelmingly carried the state in the ensuing election and for the first time, Stephens returned to Congress no longer a Whig.

Despite his late arrival to the Democratic Party, Stephens quickly rose, even serving as James Buchanan's floor manager in the House during the battle for the Lecompton Constitution for the Kansas Territory in 1857.

Stephens did not run for renomination in 1858.

[edit] Civil War

In 1861 he served as a delegate to the Georgia convention that voted to secede from the United States. During the state convention, as well as during the 1860 presidential campaign, Stephens called for the South to remain loyal to the Union, likening it to a leaking but fixable boat. During the convention he reminded his fellow delegates that Republicans were a minority in Congress (especially in the Senate) and therefore, even with a Republican president, would be forced to compromise just as the two sections had for decades. And, since the Supreme Court had voted 7–2 in the Dred Scott case, it would take decades of Senate approved appointments to reverse it. He voted against secession in the Georgia convention but asserted the right to secede if the general government continued allowing northern states to effectively nullify the Constitutionally empowered Fugitive Slave Law with so-called "personal liberty laws" that made recapture go through trial. He was elected to the Confederate Congress, and was chosen by the Congress as Vice President of the provisional government. He was then elected Vice President of the Confederacy. He took the oath office February 11, 1861, and served until his arrest on March 11, 1865. Vice President Stephens thus officially served in office eight days longer than President Davis; taking his oath seven days prior to Davis' inauguration, and was captured the day after the President.

On the brink of the Civil War, Stephens gave his famous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia on March 21, 1861. In it he reaffirmed that "African Slavery … was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution." He went on to assert that the then-prevailing "assumption of the equality of races" was "fundamentally wrong." "Our new [Confederate] government is founded … 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", and also: "With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system."

Stephens suffered from illness and disease throughout his life, and weighed only 96 pounds. While his voice was described as shrill and unpleasant, at the beginning of the Civil War, a northern newspaper described him as "The Strongest Man in the South" because of his intelligence, judgment, and eloquence.

A staunch states rights enthusiast, actions of the Davis government soon drove Stephens into political opposition. He returned to Georgia and became a champion of Governor Joseph E. Brown. In 1862 Stephens became the leader of the Senate opposition to the Davis administration.^{[citation needed]}

On February 3, 1865, he served as one of the commissioners representing the Confederacy and met with President Abraham Lincoln on the steamer River Queen, at the Hampton Roads Conference which attempted to reach a peaceful ending to the Civil War. He was arrested at his home in Crawfordville, Georgia, on May 11, 1865.

[edit] Postbellum career

After the war, he was imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, for five months until October 1865. In 1866 he was elected to the United States Senate by the first legislature convened under the new Georgia State constitution, but did not present his credentials, as the State had not been readmitted to the Union. He was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ambrose R. Wright, and was reelected to the Forty-fourth and to the three succeeding Congresses, serving from December 1, 1873, until his resignation on November 4, 1882, at which time he was elected governor of Georgia. His tenure as governor proved brief as Stephens died in March 1883, mere weeks after taking office. According to a former slave, a gate fell on Stephens "and he was crippled and lamed up from dat time on 'til he died." [1]

He was interred in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, then reinterred on his estate, Liberty Hall, near Crawfordville, Georgia.

He published A Constitutional View of the War between the States (two volumes, 1868-70) in which he wrote on the South's position in regard to the doctrines of State sovereignty and secession.

He is pictured on the CSA $20.00 banknote (3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th issues).

Toccoa, Georgia serves as seat of a county in north Georgia that bears his name, as does a state park just outside of Crawfordville, Georgia.

Georgians frequently refer to Stephens as "Little Aleck."

[edit] See also

• A.H. Stephens Historic Park

[edit] References

• Thomas E. Schott, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography (1988)
• Rudolph R. von Abele, Alexander H. Stephens: A Biography (1946)
• William C. Davis, The Union that Shaped the Confederacy: Robert Toombs & Alexander H. Stephens (2002)
• Richard Malcolm Johnston & William Hand Browne, Life of Alexander H. Stephens (1883). Originally published in 1878.
• Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private, with Letters and Speeches (1866)
• W.P.Trent, Southern Statesmen of the Old Régime (1897)
• Jon L. Wakelyn, Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy
• Wilson, Edmund. Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War (1962) ch 11, on his book
• Biographical article from Harper's Weekly, February 23, 1861.

[edit] External links

• Timeline and biography of Alexander Stephens
• The Life and Work of Alexander Stephens
• "Cornerstone" Speech
• What I Really Said in the Cornerstone Speech Stephens clarifies his statements
• Another explanation

Preceded by (none)	Vice President of the Confederate States 1861-1865	Succeeded by (none)
Preceded by Alfred H. Colquitt	Governor of Georgia 1882-1883	Succeeded by James S. Boynton

Governors of Georgia

Walton • Bulloch • Gwinnett • Treutlen • Houstoun • Wereat • Walton • Howly • Heard • Davies • Brownson • Martin • Hall • Houstoun • Elbert • Telfair • Mathews • Handley • Walton • Telfair • Mathews • Irwin • Jackson • Emanuel • Tattnall • Milledge • Irwin • Mitchell • Early • Mitchell • Rabun • Talbot • Clark • Troup • Forsyth • Gilmer • Lumpkin • Schley • Gilmer • McDonald • Crawford • Towns • Cobb • H. Johnson • J.E. Brown • J. Johnson • Jenkins • Ruger • Bullock • Conley • J. Smith • Colquitt • Stephens • Boynton • McDaniel • Gordon • Northen • Atkinson • Candler • Terrell • H. Smith • J.M. Brown • H. Smith • Slaton • J.M. Brown • Slaton • N. Harris • Dorsey • Hardwick • Walker • Hardman • Russell • E. Talmadge • Rivers • E. Talmadge • Arnall • Thompson • H. Talmadge • Griffin • Vandiver • Sanders • Maddox • Carter • Busbee • J.F. Harris • Miller • Barnes • Perdue