- Alexander Stephens
Infobox Vice_President
name=Alexander Hamilton Stephens
nationality=American
order=Vice President of the Confederate States of America
term_start=February 11 ,1861
term_end=May 11 ,1865
predecessor="Office instituted"
successor="Office abolished"
order2=58thGovernor of Georgia
term_start2=November 4 ,1882
term_end2=March 5 ,1883
predecessor2=Alfred H. Colquitt
successor2=James S. Boynton
birth_date=birth date|1812|2|11|mf=y
birth_place=Taliaferro County, Georgia
death_date=death date and age|1883|3|4|1812|2|11|mf=y
death_place=Atlanta, Georgia
spouse=
profession=Lawyer
party=Whig, Constitutional, Democratic
president=Jefferson Davis :"This is an article about the Confederate Vice President. For the shipbuilding company, seeAlexander Stephen and Sons Alexander Hamilton Stephens (February 11 ,1812 ndashMarch 4 ,1883 ) was an American politician from Georgia. He wasVice President of theConfederate States of America during theAmerican Civil War . He also served as a U.S. Representative from Georgia (both before the Civil War and after Reconstruction) and asGovernor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883.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 ministerAlexander Hamilton Webster . Out of deep respect for his mentor, Stephens adopted Webster's middle name, "Hamilton", as his own. (He was not named afterAlexander Hamilton as most assume.) Stephens attended the Franklin College (later theUniversity of Georgia ) in Athens, where he was roommates withCrawford W. Long and a member of thePhi Kappa Literary Society . 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 32 years of practice, he gained a reputation as a capable defender of the wrongfully accused. None of his clients charged with capital crimes was executed. One notable case was that of a black slave woman accused of attempted murder. Stephens volunteered to defend her. Despite the circumstantial evidence presented against her, Stephens persuaded the jury to acquit the woman, thus saving her life.
Stephens suffered from illness and disease throughout his life; he weighed only 96 pounds. But he was a skillful lawyer and wonderful orator. 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. His generosity was legendary. His house, even when he was governor of Georgia, was always open to travelers or tramps. He personally financed the education of over a hundred students, black and white, male and female. So prodigious was his charity, that he died virtually penniless.
As his wealth increased, Stephens began acquiring land and slaves. By the time of the Civil War, Stephens owned 34 slaves and several thousand acres. Stephens entered politics in 1836, when he was elected to the
Georgia House of Representatives . He served there until 1841. in 1842, he was elected to theGeorgia State Senate .Congressional career
In 1843, Stephens was elected U.S. Representative as a Whig, in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of
Mark A. Cooper . This seat was an at-large seat, as Georgia did not have House districts until 1844. In 1844, 1846, and 1848, Stephens was re-elected Representative from the 7th District as a Whig. In 1851 he was re-elected as a Unionist, in 1853 as a Whig (from the 8th District), and in 1855 and 1857 as a Democrat. He served fromOctober 2 ,1843 toMarch 3 ,1859 , in the 28th Congress through the 35th Congress.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 theMexican-American War . He was an equally vigorous opponent of theWilmot Proviso , which would have barred the extension of slavery into territories acquired by the United States during the war with Mexico. This debate would almost lead to his death when a dispute with aJudge Cone in Atlanta resulted in a violent stabbing assault. While serious, the attack was not fatal and Stephens returned home to Crawfordville for recovery and they reconciled before Cone's death in 1851. Stephens and fellow Georgia RepresentativeRobert Toombs worked diligently for the election ofZachary Taylor as President in 1848. Both were chagrined and angered when Taylor proved less than pliable on aspects of theCompromise of 1850 . 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 theGeorgia Platform , which rallied Unionists throughout theDeep 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 Representative
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. Stephens spent the next few years as a Constitutional Unionist, essentially an independent. He vigorously opposed the dismantling of the Constitutional Union party when it began crumbling in 1851. Political realities soon forced the Union Democrats in the party to affiliate once more with the national party, and by mid-1852, the unnatural combination of Democrats and Whigs, which had formed a "party" behind the Compromise, had come undone.The sectional issue surged to the forefront again in 1854, when Senator Stephen A. Douglas moved to organize the Nebraska Territory, all of which lay north of the
Missouri Compromise line, in theKansas-Nebraska Act . This legislation aroused fury in the North because it applied thepopular sovereignty principle to the Territory, thereby negating the Missouri Compromise. Had it not been for Stephens, the bill would have probably never passed in the House. He employed an obscure House rule to bring the bill to a vote. He later called this "the greatest glory of my life."From this point on, Stephens voted with the Democrats. Not until after the Congressional elections of 1855 could Stephens be properly called a Democrat, although even then he never officially declared it. In this move, Stephens broke irrevocably with many of his former Whig colleagues. When the Whig Party disintegrated after the election of 1852, most Whigs flocked to the short-lived Know-Nothing Party. But Stephens fiercely opposed the Know-Nothings both for their secrecy and their anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic position.
Despite his late arrival to the Democratic Party, Stephens quickly rose. He even served as President Buchanan's floor manager in the House during the fruitless battle for the
Lecompton Constitution forKansas Territory in 1857. He was instrumental in framing and passing the so-called English bill after it became clear that Lecompton would never pass.Worn out and disgusted, Stephens did not seek re-election to Congress in 1858. As sectional peace eroded during the next two years, Stephens became increasingly critical of southern extremists. Although virtually the entire South had spurned Douglas as a traitor to Southern Rights (because he had opposed the Lecompton Constitution and broken with Buchanan), Stephens remained on good terms with the
Illinois Senator and served as one of his presidential electors in the election of 1860.Vice President
In 1861, Stephens was elected as a delegate to the Georgia special convention to decide on
secession from theUnited States . During the 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, even with a Republican President, would be forced to compromise just as the two sections had for decades. And, because 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 convention, but asserted the right to secede if the federal government continued allowing northern states to nullify theFugitive Slave Law with "personal liberty laws". He was elected to theConfederate 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 of office onFebruary 11 ,1861 , and served until his arrest onMay 11 ,1865 . Vice President Stephens officially served in office eight days longer than PresidentJefferson Davis ; he took his oath seven days before Davis' inauguration and was captured the day after Davis.On the brink of the Civil War, on
March 21 ,1861 , Stephens gave his famousCornerstone Speech inSavannah, Georgia . In it he declared that slavery was the natural condition of blacks and the foundation of the confederacy.In 1862, Stephens first publicly expressed his opposition to the Davis administration. [cite book |title=Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia |last=Schott |first=Thomas E. |year=1988 |pages=357 ff. ] Throughout the war he denounced many of the president's policies, including conscription, suspension of the writ of "habeas corpus", impressment, various financial and taxation policies, and Davis' military strategy.
In mid-1863, Davis dispatched the vice president on a fruitless mission to Washington to discuss prisoner exchanges, but in the immediate aftermath of the Federal victory of Gettysburg, the Lincoln government refused to receive him. As the war continued, and the fortunes of the Confederacy sank lower, Stephens became more outspoken in his opposition to the administration. On March 16, 1864, Stephens delivered a speech to the Georgia legislature that was widely reported both North and South. In it, he excoriated the administration for its support of conscription and suspension of "habeas corpus", and further, he supported a block of resolutions aimed at securing peace. From then until the end of the war, as he continued to press for actions aimed at bringing about peace, his relations with President Davis, never warm to begin with, turned completely sour.
On
February 3 ,1865 , he was one of three Confederate commissioners who met with President Lincoln on the steamer "River Queen" at theHampton Roads Conference , a forlorn effort to discuss measures to bring an end to the fighting.Post-bellum career
Stephens was arrested at his home in Crawfordville, on
May 11 ,1865 . He was imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, for five months until October 1865. In 1866 he was elected to theUnited 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. In 1873, he was elected U.S. Representative as a Democrat from the 8th District to fill the vacancy caused by the death ofAmbrose R. Wright , and was re-elected in 1874, 1876, 1878, and 1880. He served in the 43rd through 47th Congresses, fromDecember 1 ,1873 until his resignation onNovember 4 ,1882 . On that date he was elected and took office as governor of Georgia. His tenure as governor proved brief; Stephens died onMarch 4 1883, four months 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." [http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mesn&fileName=041/mesn041.db&recNum=54&itemLink=D?mesnbib:2:./temp/~ammem_sRsD::]He was interred in Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, then re-interred on his estate, Liberty Hall, near Crawfordville.
He published "A Constitutional View of the War between the States" (two volumes, 1868-70), a defense of the South's position on state
sovereignty and secession.He is pictured on the CSA $20.00 banknote (3rd, 5th, 6th, and 7th issues).
Stephens County, Georgia , bears his name, as does a state park near Crawfordville.ee also
*
A.H. Stephens Historic Park 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, " [http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC04116695 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.External links
* [http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Alexander_Stephens Timeline and biography of Alexander Stephens]
* [http://portagepub.com/products/causouth/index.html The Life and Work of Alexander Stephens]
* [http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76 "Cornerstone" Speech]
* [http://www.adena.com/adena/usa/cw/cw223.htm What I Really Said in the Cornerstone Speech] Stephens clarifies his statements
* [http://www.etymonline.com/cw/cornerstone.htm Another explanation]
* [http://www.gastateparks.org/info/ahsteph/ A. H. Stephens State Historic Park]###@@@KEY@@@###USRepSuccessionBox
state=Georgia
district=AL
before=Mark A. Cooper
after="(none)"
years=October 2 ,1843 ndashMarch 3 ,1845
Served alongside: Edward J. Black,Howell Cobb ,Hugh A. Haralson , Absalom H. Chappell, John H. Lumpkin,John Millen , Duncan L. Clinch and William H. StilesUSRepSuccessionBox
state=Georgia
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years=March 4 ,1845 ndashMarch 3 ,1853 USRepSuccessionBox
state=Georgia
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years=March 4 ,1853 ndashMarch 3 ,1859 USRepSuccessionBox
state=Georgia
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after=Seaborn Reese
years=December 1 ,1873 ndashNovember 4 ,1882 succession box two to two
title1=Representative to the Provisional Confederate Congress from Georgia
before="(none)"
years1=1861
title2=Vice President of the Confederate States of America
after="(none)"
years2=February 11 ,1861 ndashMay 11 ,1865 succession box
before=Alfred H. Colquitt
title=Governor of Georgia
after=James S. Boynton
years=1882ndash 1883
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