Alexander H. Stephens | |
|---|---|
 Portraitc. 1865 | |
| Vice President of the Confederate States | |
| In office February 22, 1862 – May 5, 1865 Provisional: February 11, 1861 – February 22, 1862 | |
| President | Jefferson Davis |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| 50thGovernor of Georgia | |
| In office November 4, 1882 – March 4, 1883 | |
| Preceded by | Alfred H. Colquitt |
| Succeeded by | James S. Boynton |
| Member of theU.S. House of Representatives fromGeorgia's8th district | |
| In office December 1, 1873 – November 4, 1882 | |
| Preceded by | John James Jones |
| Succeeded by | Seaborn Reese |
| In office October 2, 1843 – March 3, 1859 | |
| Preceded by | Mark A. Cooper |
| Succeeded by | John James Jones |
| Constituency | At-large (1843–1845) 7th district (1845–1853) 8th district (1853–1859) |
| Member of theConfederate States Provisional Congress fromGeorgia | |
| In office February 4, 1861 – February 17, 1862 | |
| Preceded by | Constituency established |
| Succeeded by | Constituency abolished |
| Member of theGeorgia Senate from theTaliaferro County district | |
| In office November 7, 1842 – December 27, 1842 | |
| Preceded by | Singleton Harris |
| Succeeded by | Abner Darden |
| Member of theGeorgia House of Representatives from theTaliaferro County district | |
| In office November 7, 1836 – December 9, 1841 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1812-02-11)February 11, 1812 Crawfordville, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | March 4, 1883(1883-03-04) (aged 71) Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Resting place | A. H. Stephens State Park, Crawfordville |
| Political party | Whig (1836–50) Union (1850–54) Democratic (1854–61, 1865–83) |
| Education | University of Georgia (BA) |
| Signature |  |
Alexander Hamilton Stephens[a] (February 11, 1812 – March 4, 1883) was an American politician who served as the first and onlyvice president of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865, and later as the50th governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. A member of theDemocratic Party, he represented the state ofGeorgia in theUnited States House of Representatives before and after theCivil War.
Stephens attended Franklin College and established a legal practice in his hometown of Crawfordville, Georgia. After serving in both houses of theGeorgia General Assembly, he was elected to theCongress, taking his seat in 1843. He became a leading SouthernWhig and strongly opposed theMexican–American War. After the war, Stephens was a prominent supporter of theCompromise of 1850 and helped draft theGeorgia Platform, which opposedsecession. A proponent of the expansion of slavery into theterritories, Stephens also helped pass theKansas–Nebraska Act. As the Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s, Stephens eventually joined the Democratic Party and worked with PresidentJames Buchanan to admit Kansas as a state under the pro-slaveryLecompton Constitution (which was overwhelmingly rejected by Kansas voters in a referendum).
Stephens declined to seek re-election in 1858 but continued to publicly advocate against secession. After Georgia and other Southern states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, Stephens was elected as the Confederate Vice President. Stephens'sCornerstone Speech of March 1861 defendedslavery; enumerated contrasts between the American and Confederate foundings, ideologies, andconstitutions; and laid out the Confederacy's rationale forseceding.[2] In the course of the war, he became increasingly critical of PresidentJefferson Davis's policies, especiallyConfederate conscription and the suspension ofhabeas corpus.[3] In February 1865, he was one of the commissioners who met withAbraham Lincoln at the abortiveHampton Roads Conference to discuss peace terms.
After the war, Stephens was imprisoned until October 1865. The following year, the Georgia legislature elected Stephens to theU.S. Senate, but the Senate declined to seat him due to his role in the Civil War. He won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1873 and served until 1882, when he resigned from Congress to become governor of Georgia. Stephens served as governor until his death in March 1883.
Alexander Stephens was born on February 11, 1812.[1] His parents were Andrew Baskins Stephens and Margaret Grier.[4] The Stephenses lived on a farm in Taliaferro County, near Crawfordville. At the time of Alexander Stephens's birth, the farm was part of Wilkes County. Taliaferro County was created in 1825 from land in Greene, Hancock, Oglethorpe, Warren, and Wilkes counties.[5] His father, a native of Pennsylvania, came to Georgia at 12 years of age in 1795. According to theBiographical Sketch of Linton Stephens (Linton Stephens being Alexander Stephens's half-brother), Andrew B. Stephens was "endowed with uncommon intellectual faculties; he had sound practical judgment; he was a safe counselor, sagacious, self-reliant, candid and courageous."[6]
His mother, a Georgia native and sister ofGrier's Almanac founder Robert Grier,[7] died in 1812 at the age of 26; Alexander Stephens was only three months old. In the introduction toRecollections of Alexander H. Stephens, there is this about his mother and her family: "Margaret came of folk who had a liking for books, and a turn for law, war, and meteorology."[8] The introduction continues: "In her son's character was a marked blending of parental traits. He [Alexander Stephens] was thrifty, generous, progressive; one of the best lawyers in the land; a reader and collector of books; a close observer of the weather, and father of theWeather Bureau of the United States."[9] In 1814, Andrew B. Stephens married Matilda Lindsay, daughter ofRevolutionary War Colonel John Lindsay.[10]
In May 1826, when Alexander Stephens was age 14, his father, Andrew, and stepmother, Matilda, died of pneumonia only days apart.[11] Their deaths caused him and several siblings to be scattered among relatives. He grew up poor and in difficult circumstances. Not long after the deaths of his father and his stepmother, Alexander Stephens was sent to live with his mother's other brother, General Aaron W. Grier, near Raytown (Taliaferro County), Georgia. General Grier had inherited his own father's library, said to be "the largest library in all that part of the country."[12] Alexander Stephens, who read voraciously even as a youth, mentions the library in his "Recollections."
Frail but precocious, the young Stephens acquired his continued education through the generosity of several benefactors. One of them was the Presbyterian minister Alexander Hamilton Webster, who presided over a school in Washington, Georgia. Out of respect for his mentor, Stephens adopted Webster's middle name, Hamilton, as his own. Stephens attended Franklin College (later the University of Georgia) in Athens, Georgia, where he was a roommate ofCrawford W. Long and a member of thePhi Kappa Literary Society. He raised funds for Phi Kappa Hall, located on the university campus.[13] Stephens graduated at the top of his class in 1832.
After several unhappy years teaching in school, Stephens began legal studies, was admitted to the Georgia 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 withcapital crimes were executed. As his wealth increased, Stephens began acquiring land andslaves. By the time of the Civil War, Stephens owned 34 slaves and several thousand acres. He entered politics in 1836 and was elected to theGeorgia House of Representatives, serving there until 1841. In 1842, he was elected to theGeorgia Senate.
Stephens served in the U.S. House of Representatives from October 2, 1843, to March 3, 1859, during the 28th through the 35th Congresses. In 1843, he was elected to the House as aWhig, in a special election to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation ofMark A. Cooper.[14] This seat was at-large, as Georgia did not have U.S. House Districts until the following year. Stephens was re-elected from the 7th District as a Whig in 1844, 1846, and 1848, as aUnionist in 1850, and again as a Whig (from the 8th District) in 1852. In 1854 and 1856, his re-elections came as aDemocrat.[clarification needed] As a national lawmaker during the crucial decades before the Civil War, Stephens was involved in all of the major sectional battles. He began as a moderate defender of slavery but later accepted the prevailing Southern rationale utilized 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, and later became an equally vigorous opponent of theWilmot Proviso, which would have barred the extension of slavery into territories that were acquired after the war. He also controversially tabled theClayton Compromise, which would have excluded slavery from theOregon Territory and left the issue of slavery in New Mexico and California to theU.S. Supreme Court. This would later nearly kill Stephens when he argued with Georgia Supreme Court JusticeFrancis H. Cone, who stabbed him repeatedly in a fit of anger.[15] Stephens was physically outmatched by his larger assailant, but he remained defiant during the attack, refusing to recant his positions even at the cost of his life. Only the intervention of others saved him. Stephens's wounds were serious, and he returned home to Crawfordville to recover. He and Cone reconciled before Cone's death in 1859.
Stephens and fellow Georgia RepresentativeRobert Toombs campaigned 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. After Taylor supported the ratification ofNew Mexico's anti-slaverystate constitution and threatened to send troops to defend it against Texas's territorial claims, Stephens published an open letter in theNational Intelligencer calling for Taylor'simpeachment, and he warned that if the United States were to fire the first shots against Texas it would lead to the Southern states to secede from the Union.[16] Stephens and Toombs both supported said compromise betweenslave and free states, though they opposed the exclusion of slavery from the territories on the theory that such lands belonged to all of the people. The pair returned from the District of Columbia to Georgia to secure support for the measures at home. Both men were instrumental in drafting and approving theGeorgia Platform, which rallied Unionists throughout theDeep South.
Stephens and Toombs were not only political allies but also lifelong friends. Stephens was described as "a highly sensitive young man of serious and joyless habits of consuming ambition, of poverty-fed pride, and of morbid preoccupation within self," a contrast to the "robust, wealthy, and convivial Toombs. But this strange camaraderie endured with singular accord throughout their lives."[17]
By this time, Stephens had departed the ranks of the Whig party, whose Northern wing generally was not amenable to some Southern interests. Back in Georgia, Stephens, Toombs, and Democratic U.S. RepresentativeHowell Cobb formed theConstitutional 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. He vigorously opposed the dissolution of the Constitutional Union Party as it began to crumble 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 combination of both Democrats and Whigs, which had formed a party behind the Compromise, had ended.
The sectional issue surged to the forefront again in 1854, whenSenatorStephen A. Douglas from Illinois moved to organize the Nebraska Territory, all of which lay north of theMissouri Compromise line, in theKansas–Nebraska Act. This legislation aroused fury in the North because it applied thepopular sovereignty principle to the Territory, in violation of the Missouri Compromise. Had it not been for Stephens, the bill probably never would have 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. Until after 1855, Stephens could not properly be called a Democrat, and 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, some Whigs flocked to the short-livedKnow-Nothing Party, but Stephens fiercely opposed the Know Nothings both for their secrecy and their anti-immigrant andanti-Catholic position.
Despite his late arrival in the Democratic Party, Stephens quickly rose through the ranks. He even served asPresident James Buchanan's floor manager in the House during the fruitless battle for the slave stateLecompton Constitution forKansas Territory in 1857. He was instrumental in framing the failedEnglish Bill after it became clear that Lecompton would not pass, in order to secure its approval.
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 Douglas and even served as one of hispresidential electors in theelection of 1860.
On November 14, 1860, Stephens delivered a speech titled "The Assertions of a Secessionist." He said:
When I look around and see our prosperity in every thing, agriculture, commerce, art, science, and every department of education, physical and mental, as well as moral advancement, and our colleges, I think, in the face of such an exhibition, if we can, without the loss of power, or any essential right or interest, remain in the Union, it is our duty to ourselves and to posterity to—let us not too readily yield to this temptation—do so. Our first parents, the great progenitors of the human race, were not without a like temptation when in the garden of Eden. They were led to believe that their condition would be bettered—that their eyes would be opened—and that they would become as gods. They, in an evil hour, yielded—instead of becoming gods, they only saw their own nakedness. I look upon this country, with our institutions, as the Eden of the world, the paradise of the universe.[18]
On the eve of the outbreak of the American Civil War, Stephens counseled delaying a military move against U.S.-heldFort Sumter andFort Pickens so that the Confederacy could build up its forces and stockpile resources.[19]
In 1861, Stephens was elected as a delegate to theGeorgia Secession Convention to decide Georgia's response to the election ofAbraham Lincoln. During the convention, as well as during the 1860 presidential campaign, Stephens, who came to be known asthe sage of Liberty Hall,[20] 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 thatRepublicans were a minority in Congress (especially in the Senate) and, even with a Republican president, they would be forced to compromise just as the two sections had for decades. Because theSupreme Court had voted 7–2 in theDred Scott case, it would take decades of Senate-approved appointments to reverse it. He voted against secession in the convention[21] 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.[22] He took the provisional oath of office on February 11, 1861, then the 'full term' oath of office on February 22, 1862 (after beingelected in November 1861) and served until his arrest on May 11, 1865. Stephens officially served in office eight days longer than PresidentJefferson Davis; he took his oath seven days before Davis's inauguration and was captured the day after Davis.
In 1862, Stephens publicly expressed his opposition to the Davis administration for the first time.[23] Throughout the war he denounced many of the president's policies, including conscription, suspension of the writ ofhabeas corpus,impressment, various financial and taxation policies, and Davis's military strategy.[24] His objections were almost always onstates' rights grounds. At some point, he stopped going to Richmond because he felt that his views were being entirely ignored. Away from the capital, he continued to criticize Davis, referring to him as a despot.[25]
In mid-1863, Davis dispatched Stephens on a fruitless mission to Washington, D.C., to discuss prisoner exchanges, but the Union victory ofGettysburg made theLincoln administration refuse 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[26] to the Georgia Legislature that was widely reported in both the North and the South. In it, he excoriated the Davis Administration for its support of conscription and the suspension ofhabeas corpus, and he supported a bloc 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 Davis, never warm to begin with, turned completely sour.
On February 3, 1865, Stephens was one of three Confederate commissioners who met with Lincoln on the steamerRiver Queen at theHampton Roads Conference, a fruitless effort to discuss measures to bring an end to the fighting. Stephens and Lincoln had been close friends and Whig political allies in the 1840s.[27] Although peace terms were not reached, Lincoln did agree to look into the whereabouts of Stephens's nephew, Confederate Lieutenant John A. Stephens. When Lincoln returned to Washington, he ordered the release of Lieutenant Stephens.[28]
Stephens was arrested for treason against the United States at his home in Crawfordville on May 11, 1865. He was imprisoned atFort Warren in Boston Harbor for five months, until October 1865.[29]
... We have settled, and, I trust, settled forever, the great question which was the prime cause of our separation from the United States: I mean the question of African Slavery.
The old[American] Constitution set out with a wrong idea on this subject; it was basedupon an erroneous principle; it was founded upon the idea that African Slavery is wrong, and it looked forward to the ultimate extinction of that institution. But time has proved the error, and we have corrected it in the new Constitution.
We have based ours upon principle of theinequality of races, and the principle is spreading -- it is becoming appreciated and better understood; and though there are many, even in the South, who are still in the shell upon this subject, yet the day is not far distant when it will be generally understood and appreciated...
Stephens'sCornerstone Speech on March 21, 1861, toThe Savannah Theatre is frequently cited in historical analysis of Confederate ideology. The speech defendedslavery; enumerated contrasts between the American and Confederate foundings, ideologies, and constitutions; and laid out the Confederacy's rationale forseceding. Historian Keith S. Hébert describes it as "the most significant speech" ever delivered by Stephens.[32] It declared that disagreements over the enslavement of Africans were the "immediate cause" of secession and that the Confederate constitution had resolved such issues.[2]
The new [Confederate] Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted.
Stephens contended that advances and progress in the sciences proved that theUnited States Declaration of Independence's view that "all men are created equal" was erroneous.[2] His speech criticized "most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution" for their views on slavery, stating that:[2][33]
The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution [Founding Fathers] were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. 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 idea of a Government built upon it - "when the storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
Stephens proceeded to state that in contrast to the United States:[2][33]
Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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 on this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.[33]
Criticizing the position of Northernevangelicals who were opposed to slavery,[34] Stephens quoted thePsalm 118:22 andCurse of Ham to biblically justify the institution, and stated that:[32]
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. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so...
Concluding:[2]
This stone which was "rejected by the first builders" [Founding Fathers] " —is become the chief of the corner" — the real "corner-stone" in our new edifice.
After the Confederacy's defeat, Stephens attempted to retroactively deny and retract the opinions he had stated in the speech. Denying his earlier statements that slavery was the Confederacy's cause for leaving the Union, he contended to the contrary that he thought that the war was rooted in constitutional differences;[2][35] this explanation by Stephens is widely rejected by historians.[2] Hébert states that "the speech haunted Stephens to the grave and beyond as he and other postbellum southern Democrats struggled to conceal the clear meaning of his words under the camouflage of aLost Cause mythology."[2]
In 1866, Stephens was elected to the United States Senate by the first legislature convened under the new Georgia State Constitution, but was not allowed to take his seat because of restrictions on former Confederates. He published a U.S. history in 1868–1870, laying out theLost Cause of the Confederacy in his view: that secession was legal, and that Northern States were the aggressors in this conflict. The thrust of his legal argument was rejected by the Supreme Court in the 1869 caseTexas v. White, which ruled that secession was unconstitutional.
In 1873, Stephens was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from the 8th District to fill the vacancy caused by the death ofAmbrose R. Wright. He was re-elected to the 8th District as anIndependent Democrat in 1874, 1876, and 1878, and as a Democrat again in 1880.[36] He described himself, on the title page of the 1876 edition of hisCompendium, as "Professor Elect of History and Political Science at the University of Georgia." He served in the 43rd through 47th Congresses, from December 1, 1873, until his resignation on November 4, 1882. On that date, he was elected and took office as governor of Georgia.[37] His tenure as governor proved brief; Stephens died on March 4, 1883, four months after taking office.[38]
Stephens was sickly throughout his life, most painfully from "cripplingrheumatoid arthritis and apinched nerve in his back."[11] Although his adult height was 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m), he often weighed less than 100 pounds (45 kg).[39] Almost all of his former slaves continued to work for him, often for little or no money;[40][better source needed] whether this decision was voluntary or the result of few other options existing for former slaves in the Deep South is difficult to determine.[41] These servants were with him upon his death. Although old and infirm, Stephens continued to work on his house and plantation. According to a former slave, a gate fell on Stephens while he and another black servant were repairing it, "and he was crippled and lamed up from that time on till he died." The veracity of this rumor is difficult to determine as the cited ex-slave was not present when this happened.[42]
While returning from a trip to Savannah in February, his already poor health further deteriorated from exposure to the elements. His last official act as governor was executed on 28 February. He died shortly before 3:30 am on 4 March, surrounded by physicians and friends. That afternoon, commemorative speeches were made by "prominent citizens" in the Georgia Senate chamber. On 6 March, Stephens' body lay in state in the chamber. On 8 March, a grand funeral was held, and all citizens of the state were requested to observe the occasion.
In 1928, Judge Alex Stephens, a nephew, introduced Cyrus Stephens, the last surviving person who had been enslaved by Alexander Stephens, to Georgia governorL. G. Hardman.[43]
A lifelong bachelor, Stephens never married and never acknowledged direct descendants.[44][45] An African American family claims to be the descendants of Stephens and a slave he owned, named Eliza,[45] though their claims were not verified bygenetic testing.[46]
{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)1875
1875
Notes
Stephens, was not a big fan of his superior.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)On March 21, 1861, recently elected Confederate vice president Alexander H. Stephens delivered an extemporaneous speech to a capacity audience in Savannah, Georgia. A recent convert to the necessity of secession, Stephens now predicted a glorious future for the new Southern Confederacy. The South, he avowed, had cast aside the Founders' intellectual fallacy of human equality and erected a new government on a foundation of white supremacy.
The Confederate vice-president, Alexander H. Stephens, had said in a speech at Savannah on March 21, 1861, that slavery was "the immediate cause of the late rupture and the present revolution" of Southern independence. The United States, said Stephens, had been founded in 1776 on the false idea that all men are created equal. The Confederacy, by contrast...
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help)That DNA testing has found no positive link between the two branches is less important than the indisputable fact that these two branches, descendants of enslavers and the enslaved, sprang from the same patch of clay....
I just take up my pen to say, that Mr. Stephens of Georgia, a little slim pale faced consumptive man, with a voice like Logan's, has just concluded the very best speech, of an hour's length, I ever heard. My old, withered, dry eyes are full of tears yet. If he writes it out any thing like he delivered it, our people shall see a good many copies of it.
Source: Henry Cleveland,Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private: With Letters and Speeches, Before, During, and Since the War (Philadelphia, 1886), pp. 717–729.
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