Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia

Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE JEFFERSON DAVIS AWARD Rising from humble origins in the middle Georgia cotton belt, Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) became one of the South’s leading politicians and lawyers. Thomas E. Schott has written the first scholarly biography that analyzes the interplay between the public and private Stephens and between state and national politics during his contradictory career. Stephens was a celebrated Whig, turned Democrat, who served as congressman from 1843 to 1859 and an antisecessionist who became vice-president of the Confederacy. Ignored by the Davis administration once in office, he eventually opposed most of its wartime policies. Schott argues that Stephens’ devotion to the southern cause was as genuine as his devotion to civil liberties and states’ rights. After the war, he became an elder statesman for Georgia, serving nine more years as a congress-man and the last five months of his life as governor.