Research Paper on "Alexander H Stephens and the Confederacy"

Research Paper 10 pages (3469 words) Sources: 2 Style: Chicago

[EXCERPT] . . . .

[footnoteRef:7] David and Stephens did not see eye to eye on just about anything. Stephens abhorred the notion of conscription -- of involuntary military service and he loathed the president's suspension of habeas corpus (which effectively made him no less a tyrant than Lincoln, who did the very same thing, and which was one reason they in the South were fighting him). If the Southern government was no different from the Northern government except willy-nilly (obeying the Constitution when it chose to), what then was the purpose of the war? There was none. Either they were on the side of the lawful right, or they were not. Davis, in Stephens' view, clouded and muddied the lawful right through his unlawful usage of presidential power. It was a contentious relationship between Davis and Stephens -- at best. [7: Allan Nevins, The Improvised War, 1861-1862 (NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959), 73.]

In 1865 as the war was drawing towards its close, Stephens discussed with Lincoln at the Hampton Roads Conference how they might best bring the fight to an end. Lincoln had changed since his Whig days in the 1840s and was not inclined to make concessions to the enemy just when he had them on the ropes. Whatever the two men had held in similar two decades prior was no more. The President of the Union, which Stephens still wished to be a part of, no longer felt that the Constitution which he had so vociferously defended with Stephens in the face of Polk's aggression. Ironically, it was the Vice-President of the Confederacy who had the most respect of anyone for the Constitution.[footnoteRef:8] [8: Chris DeRose, Congressman Lincoln (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2013), 113-117.]

For this reason, Stephens was not forgotten by constituents in the aftermath of the War. Though he was arrested at the War's conclusion and held in Boston for nearly half a year, he would go on to be elected to the U.S. Senate in 1866, showing just how much the Georgians continued to love and admire Stephens and what he stood for. Of course, the laws of Reconstruction forbade Stephens (an ex-Confederate) from officially sitting in Congress -- nonetheless, he was there in spirit.

While sitting out the sessions, Stephens turned to writing and publishing, printing his book on the Constitutionality of the South's position in the War. He became an editor of the Atlanta Sun (and part owner of the paper, too) from 1871 to 1873, whereupon he was voted to the House of Representatives, where he served for ten years. Following that, he was elected Governor of Georgia in 1882, and held office for just a few short months before dying in 1883.[footnoteRef:9] [9: "Timeline." Alexander Hamilton Stephens Papers. Library of Congress. Web. 29 Nov 2015.]

His post-bellum career was marked by the same vociferous defense of the Constitution as his pre-bellum career. Unlike his old Whig colleague, he did not change his stripes just because he changed his Party. Stephens remained true to the man he was and to the ideals he represented his entire life. To understand how he remained essentially the same man both before and after the Confederacy, it is instructive to examine the book he published in 1871, which clarified his position on the War and why the Southern states were, legally speaking, well within their rights. It was the same sort of argumentation that he used when firing one of his first salvos against federalist tyranny in the 1840s during the Mexican-American War.

In A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States: Its Causes, Character, Conduct and Results, Presented in a Series of Colloquies at Liberty Hall, Stephens traced the history of the Union and gave an analysis of the Articles of Confederation, how they were defective and why there was a federal convention to reform them. The convention, Stephens iterated, held the aim of maintaining the character of the Union as stated in the Articles and drafting them in a clearer and more explicit manner so that there could be no question as to where federal power started and stopped and the individual rights of the sovereign states began. Thus, Stephens would write, "It, then, being historically and judicially established that the thirteen States, as separate and distinct Sovereign Powers, declared their Independence, and as such entered into their first Union ."[footnoteRef:10] The key phrasing, of course, points to the fact that the states of the Union were separate and distinct sovereign powers and enjoyed a relationship-based mutually in unity and independence because of the respect for both federal and state rights. That slavery proved to be so contentious an issue that both sides (the federal and the states) seemingly lost their heads and their cool and allowed a war to get underway that would devastate the South, overthrow its established order and completely alter the trajectory of the nation as a result, was something that deeply troubled Stephens -- which is why he took the time in his post-bellum career to not only write A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States but also A Compendium of the History of the United States from the earliest settlements to 1872 (when his book was published). Stephens' views were entrenched in a logical, rational, historical and non-hysterical sense of what America was about from the earliest days on up through the Civil War. In his History, he wrote that his main purpose was "to give to the Youth of the country ... a condensed History of the United States of America; embracing all important facts ... attending the formation of their Governments, and the establishment of those free institutions which have so marked, as well as distinguished them, among the nations of the earth."[footnoteRef:11] Clearly Stephens held no bitterness or resentment towards his fellow countrymen, though he aimed to educate them about the principles that had made America an exceptional nation and to draw attention to the laws that allowed the governments, both federal and state, to achieve such grand aims. While the book was historical in nature, it could also be read as a warning -- an indictment against the abuses of power that Stephens surely saw coming down the pipeline as a result of the tyranny displayed over the course of the War. [10: Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States (Cincinnati: National Publishing Company, 1868), 82.] [11: Alexander H. Stephens, A Compendium of the History of the United States from the Earliest Settlements to 1872 (NY: Hale and Son, Publishers, 1872), 1.]

His last months in office were not on the federal level. Significantly, they were on the State level, as Governor of Georgia. In a sense, he ascended to the position that he had always exalted throughout his career -- the position of a state's right to govern itself according to its own sovereign powers. It was this issue after all, not slavery per se, that had caused the war to be fought in the first place. So it was only fitting that he be given the honor of acting as the Governor of a state -- which, in a sense, could be viewed as the highest honor afforded a man who so long fought for the issues of the Constitutional rights of the states. From this perspective, it was an even greater honor than being President of the Union (though Stephens was no less a Unionist). Yet, as Governor he could be more intimately united to the one state in which he had been born and raised and for which he had labored for so many years. It was an honor he would wield to his grave, after serving only four short months in office.

Stephens' racial views never changed, even though the slaves of the South had been freed by Lincoln. However, the blacks who had served as slaves on Stephens' plantation remained and continued to work for Stephens even after the Emancipation Proclamation and the ratification of the 13th Amendment. This suggests that in spite of Stephens' racist views, he was still seen as a worthy man and a man of high nobility, principle and virtue -- otherwise it is highly unlikely that his former slaves would have remained to work for and alongside him on the plantation. It might even be suggested that Stephens' views were simply the product of an Enlightenment ideology that had sprung up out of the Protestant ethos that spread throughout Europe at the end of the Late Renaissance and made their way to America. These views most likely did not make Stephen a cruel slave master who abused his slaves, but rather they more than likely only informed his view about social, class, and racial order. Having been born and bred in the South, where this ideology was most pronounced, it is no wonder that he held them, just as it is no wonder that Northerners held opposing views (or indifferent ones).

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