Brown were leaders of the Georgia Peace party which declared that the Richmond government could make peace if Davis desired. In• Febru ary 1865 Stephens headed the unsuccessful Confederate Peace Commission which met President Lincoln at Hampton Roads. Be fore the end of the war Stephens, discouraged, left Richmond and returned to his home in Georgia whence arose the report that he had deserted the Confederaqr. He was arrested by the Federals in May 1865 and confined in Fort Warren in Boston Harbor until October when he was paroled. Stephens favored President Johnson's plan of restoration of the Union, saying that since the South had failed to pre serve the Constitution out of the Union it should try again to save it within the Union. In 1866 he was elected to the United States Senate, but on account of the controversy over reconstruction, was refused a seat. He then turned his attention to writing a history of the sectional controversy, the first volume of which was published in 1867 and the second in 1870. In 1868 he was elected professor Df history and political science in the Univ( r y of Georgia, but on account of ill health, he was forced to decline. He edited the Atlanta Sun in 1871 in opposition to the election of Horace Greeley. Having lost nearly all his savings in this ven ture he undertook the instruction of a private law class. In 1871 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate, but in 1874 he was elected to the lower house of Con gress where he remained until 1882 when he resigned to become governor of Georgia. While in Congress he opposed the Civil Rights Bill of 1875, which aimed to extend certain social rights to the negro in the Southern States. He also objected to the methods of the Electoral Commission in 1877 and demanded that the fradulent returns be rejected; but when Hayes was declared elected Stephens advised acquiescence. He was elected gov ernor of Georgia in 1882 by a majority of 60,000 over his opponent, a popular Confederate soldier, and made an excellent governor but died before the end of his term. In personal appearance Stephens was
small and thin, never weighing over 90 pounds. His health was always poor but his disposition was cheerful. He was never married. Chil dren and negroes especially were fond of him, and to the latter he was a trusted friend. •He never blamed them for the excesses of the carpet-bag governments. He believed in the fundamental and natural inequality of the races; and Southern society and government are still based on the principle of his Savan nah speech of 1861 in which he declared that the Confederacy was founded on that inequal ity. He was a logical and effective speaker, without the arts of the popular orator. Whig or Democrat his political principles were the same; he was a Democrat of the school of Jefferson believing in State rights, State sov ereignty, strong local government and the larg est liberty of the individual compatible with good government. It was difficult for him to understand that changed economic and social conditions should be reflected in changed po litical institutions. Therefore in his views of government he was a legalist rather than a political scientist. He published 'A Consti tutional View of the War between the States) (1867-70) ; 'A School History of the United States' (1871) ; and a 'Compendium of the History of the United States' (1878-83). Though his 'Constitutional View' has great value as a historical document and all of his books are useful to show his views on politics and government, it cannot be said that he was successful as a historian, but rather as a law yer, a politician and a statesman. Consult Johnston and Browne 'Life of A. H. Stephens' (1878; new ed., 1883); Cleveland, 'A. H. Stephens in Public and Private Life, with Let ters and Speeches' (Philadelphia 1866) ; Pen dleton, Lewis, 'Alexander H. Stephens' (ib. 1908) ; Trent, William P., 'Southern States men of the Old Regime' (New York 1897) ; Avary, M. L. (ed.), 'Recollections of Alexan der H. Stephens' (1910).