- 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. He also served as a congressman from Georgia and as Governor 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 minister Alexander Hamilton Webster. Out of deep respect for his mentor, Stephens adopted
Webster's middle name, Hamilton, as his own. (He was not named after Alexander
Hamilton as most assume.) Stephens attended the Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in Athens, where he was roommates
with Crawford W. Long and a member of the Phi
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 (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 land and slaves. By
the time of the American Civil War, Stephens owned 34 slaves and several thousand
acres. In 1836, Stephens began what became a lifelong career in public service when he was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives. He served there until moving on to the
Georgia State Senate in 1842.
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 re-elected to the 29th through 31st
Congresses, as a Unionist to the 32nd Congress, as a Whig to
the 33rd Congress, and as a Democrat to the 34th and 35th Congresses,
serving October 2, 1843 to March
3, 1859.
As a national lawmaker during the crucial two decades before the American 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-American 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.
Civil War
In 1861, Stephens 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, 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 Georgia convention but asserted the right to secede if the federal 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 of office on February
11, 1861, and served until his arrest on May 11,
1865. Vice President Stephens officially served in office eight days longer than President
Jefferson Davis; he took his oath seven days prior to Davis's inauguration and was
captured the day after Davis.
Alexander Stephens in his later years.
On the brink of the Civil War, on March 21, 1861, Stephens
gave his famous Cornerstone Speech in Savannah, Georgia. 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, furthermore, "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; he 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] However, he stayed good friends with Jefferson Davis, and was a stanch
supporter of Davis.
On February 3, 1865, serving as one of several commissioners
representing the Confederacy, he 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.
Postbellum career
John White Alexander's portrait of Alexander Stephens
Alexander Stephens gravesite memorial at Liberty Hall
After the Civil 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 43rd
Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Ambrose R. Wright, and was
re-elected to the 44th 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; Stephens died on March 4, 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 re-interred
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 about 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."
See also
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.
External links
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Preceded by
Mark A. Cooper |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Georgia's At-large congressional district
October 2, 1843 – March 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.
Stiles |
Succeeded by
(none) |
Preceded by
(none) |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Georgia's 7th congressional district
March 4, 1845 – March 3,
1853 |
Succeeded by
David A. Reese |
Preceded by
Robert A. Toombs |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Georgia's 8th congressional district
March 4, 1853 – March 3,
1859 |
Succeeded by
John J. Jones |
Preceded by
(none) |
Representative to
the Provisional Confederate Congress from Georgia
1861 |
Succeeded by
(none) |
Vice President of the Confederate
States
February 11, 1861 – May 11,
1865 |
Preceded by
John J. Jones(1) |
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Georgia's 8th congressional district
December 1, 1873 – November
4, 1882 |
Succeeded by
Seaborn Reese |
Preceded by
Alfred H. Colquitt |
Governor of
Georgia
1882 – 1883 |
Succeeded by
James S. Boynton |
| Notes & References |
| 1. Because of Georgia's secession,
the House seat was vacant for over twelve years before Stephens succeeded Jones. |
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