04097 - Alexander H. Stephens; Vice President, C.S.A 1861-1865 [LC-DIG-cwpbh-04097]
Alexander Stephens was born to a poor Georgia family in 1812. His mother died when he was an infant and both his father and stepmother died within days of each other when he was 14. Frail and sickly all of his life, he often weighed less than 100 pounds and was himself often near death. He passed the bar in 1834 and began a law practice that lasted 32 years. During that time not a single client charged with a capital crime was executed. While he was a slave holder, and personally supported slavery, he also defended slaves. He even managed an acquittal for a slave woman accused of attempted murder.
In 1843 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Whig. He was reelected many times even after he broke with the Whig party, first as an independent and then as a Democrat. During a debate with Judge Cone on the annexation of Texas, he argued for a provision to extend slavery into the new Texas territories. The Judge became so enraged that he stabbed Stephens numerous times. Stephens, although severely injured and physically outmatched, refused to recant his position.
When it became clear that the South intended to break away from the Union, he argued against it. He felt that despite having a Republican president, the Republicans were the minority in Congress and that compromises would have to be made. At the same time, he argued that the states should have the right to secede.
In 1861, Stephens was elected to represent Georgia at a special convention to decide the issue of secession. He argued again for the South to stay with the Union. He reminded the delegates that not only were the Republicans a minority, the Supreme Court supported slavery and it would take decades to overturn all of those appointments. When the South voted to secede, he was elected as Vice President and took office on February 11th, 1861. In March, he gave a pro-slavery speech that declared that this was the natural condition of blacks (to be slaves) and that slavery was the cornerstone of the Confederacy.
"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."
By 1862, he began to disagree with President Davis and became an outspoken opponent to his policies. In 1863, Davis sent Stephens to Washington to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Exchanges were a common practice and resulted in many repatriated soldiers during the war. Lincoln, however, didn't see the need to continue the practice, as the victory at Gettysburg had given him a strong position. He refused to see Stephens and the exchange was cancelled. Stephens became more and more vocal against Davis during the remainder of the war.
In February of 1865, he did meet with Lincoln in an attempt to end the fighting. By this point it was clear that the South would lose and Stephens blamed Davis for both his policies on conscription and poor military skills. Arrested on May 11th , he was held till October of 1865.
The following year he was elected to the Senate to represent Georgia. Since the state had not been re-admitted to the union, he was refused a seat and not sworn into office. After Georgia was admitted back into the Union in 1873 he was elected once again to the House of Representatives and served till 1882 when he was elected Governor. Sadly his frail health caught up to him once again and he died five months after taking office.
![04097 - Alexander H. Stephens; Vice President, C.S.A 1861-1865 [LC-DIG-cwpbh-04097]](/img/s/v-10/p1466041142-3.jpg)