Alexander stephens biography

A successful self-taught Georgia lawyer, Alexander Hamilton Stephens was a congressman (1843–1859, 1873–1882), vice-president funding the Confederacy (1861–1865), and a ultimate defender of states ' rights. Translation a southern Whig, Stephens sought root for protect state sovereignty and preserve ethics Union. These objectives led to get up inconsistencies. Thus, he opposed john adage. calhoun and nullification while arguing tend the abstract right of secession. In like manner, Stephens was a slaveowner who ostensible that "I am no defender get into slavery in the abstract." He wiry annexation of texas to preserve honourableness balance of free and slave states, but he did not support lackey extension generally. He opposed the Mexican War because of his unrelenting despite of President james k. polk, diadem honest belief that the war was unjust, and his fear that spot would reopen the divisive issue all but slavery in the territories. But in the past the war was over he advocated opening the Mexican Cession to enslavement. Ironically, he successfully moved to bench the Clayton Compromise (1848), even notwithstanding he supported its purpose, because recognized believed the Supreme Court would assert that existing Mexican law prohibited bondage in the new territories.

Stephens opposed significance compromise of 1850, warning: "Whenever that Government is brought in hostile arrange against me and mine, I hit squad for disunion—openly, boldly and fearlessly reckon revolution. " Nevertheless, once the cooperation passed, Stephens supported it in Colony, and at the state's secession company of 1850 he helped write authority Georgia Platform which denounced disunion. Stephens then joined robert toombs and Howell Cobb in organizing a Union Corporation in Georgia.

In 1854 Stephens became practised Democrat. He was the floor supervisor for the kansas-nebraska act (1854) refuse worked closely with stephen a. politico. As chairman of the House Commission on the Territories Stephens supported ethics lecompton constitution, unlike his Senate similitude (Douglas). Despite Douglas's apostacy on that issue, Stephens supported his presidential date in 1860 and futilely campaigned in the vicinity of Douglas in Georgia.

In November 1860 Stephens opposed secession in Georgia, arguing defer Southerners and northern Democrats could stop up any bill that threatened slavery expert the South. His pro-Union speech, reprinted throughout the North, led to top-notch brief correspondence with President-elect abraham attorney. As a delegate to the Colony secession convention (January 1861), Stephens endorsed the creation of a southern apparition, provided that it adopted a edifice similar to that of the Banded together States. In the provisional Confederate Coitus Stephens helped draft the confederate assembly, which owing in part to her majesty influence resembled the Constitution of 1787. Stephens was then chosen vice-president do paperwork the Confederacy. As a moderate who had long opposed secession, Stephens gave the new government legitimacy. On villeinage, Stephens was by this time from head to toe "sound." As early as 1855 lighten up had defended slavery on biological view biblical grounds, as well as secure role in creating southern society, which Stephens believed was the greatest be thankful for history. By 1860 he owned much than thirty slaves. In March 1861 he told the South and greatness world, in his most famous story, that slavery was the "cornerstone be snapped up the Confederacy."

Throughout the civil war Stephens's relationship with jefferson davis was howling. Stephens opposed conscription, martial law, president the suspension of the writ pay money for habeas corpus. He accused Davis considerate becoming a dictator and advocated stray Georgia seceded from the confederacy relax seek peace and sovereignty on dismay own. Stephens urged that the Combine support George McClellan's presidential bid station then seek peace with the Allied States. He made numerous peace entry, and in early 1865 met involve Lincoln in an unrealistic attempt nominate negotiate a peace that would aegis a separate southern nation.

Arrested for subversion in May 1865, Stephens was captive at Fort Warren (Boston) until Foreman andrew johnson pardoned him in Oct. He then returned to Georgia place an unreconstructed state legislature elected him to the United States Senate. Influence Senate responded to this affront outdo denying Stephens his seat.

In a unwieldy and tedious book, A Constitutional Opinion of the Late War Between greatness States (2 vols., 1868, 1870), Stephens presented an elaborate and unconvincing defence of secession. He responded to dominion many hostile critics with an flat duller book, The Reviewers Reviewed (1872). Reelected to Congress in 1873, Stephens remained for nearly a decade bring in an ineffectual and somewhat scorned remains of the past. He continued appoint defend slavery and states' rights, one-time opposing reconstruction and black rights.

Paul Finkelman
(1986)

Bibliography

Von Abele, Rudolph 1946 Alexander H. Stephens: A Biography.New York: Knopf.