STEPHENS, stc'venz, ALEXANDER HAMILTON ( . An American statesman, and the Vice President of the Confederate States: born in Taliaferro County, Ga., February 11, 1812. His boyhood was one of poverty and toil. with occa sional attendance at 'old-field' schools. A so ciety for the education of young men for the Presbyterian ministry became interested in him and provided him with the means for education at Franklin College, now the State University, where he graduated at the head of his class in 1832. He did not enter the ministry, but he returned, with interest, the money advanced for him by the society, in accordance with the understanding upon which he had received it. Ile taught school for a time, and after three months' study of law without a tutor was ad mitted to the bar at Crawfordville. his county town, at the age of twenty-two. At twenty-four he was elected to the State Legislature, and after five years' service there was sent to the United States House of Representatives, where he re mained from 1843 until he voluntarily retired in 1859.
In 1861 he became Vice-President of the Con federate States and remained so while that gov ernment lasted, though not wholly in accord with its policy. He headed the Confederate Commis sion that met President Lincoln and Secretary Seward at Hampton Roads in February, 1S65, to confer upon terms of peace. (See HAMPTON ROADS CONFERENCE.) There is no foundation in fact for the story that Lincoln told Stephens that he might write his own terms if restoration of the Union were agreed upon as the first con dition of peace. After the fall of the Con federacy he was imprisoned in Fort Warren. Bos ton Harbor, from May until October, 1865. Elected to the United States Senate in 1866, he was not permitted to take his seat, and he did not reenter official public life until 1873, when he became a member of the National House of Representatives, from which he again voluntarily retired in 18S2. In the fall of that year he was elected Governor of Georgia, and died in the executive mansion, Atlanta, March 4, 1883, leav ing a creditable record as statesman, orator, and writer.
His career is one of the most remarkable in American annals. With moral as well as physi cal courage, he was independent of party. Hence, until 1355, though lie had never been in thorough accord with the Whig Party, he generally acted with it simply because he preferred its policy, on the whole, to that of the Democrats. When the Whig Party became disorganized by affiliations of its Northern mem bers with the Free-Soilers, he acted with the Democrats, opposed the Know-Nothing Party, and supported Douglas for the Presidency in 1860. But as, in 1852, he would not act with the Whig Party in support of Scott, so in 1872 lie would not act with the Demo cratic Party in support of Greeley. While he rejected as fallacious and inconsistent the doctrine of nullification, he believed in the right of secession: but he was opposed to the policy of resorting to it in 1861 as a remedy for the political situation at that time. He was devoted to the Union, but believed his ultimate allegiance due to his State, and when she seceded he went with it; but in the conflict that ensued his efforts were directed to a peaceful adjustment based on the principles upon which the Union was formed, for he held the Union itself seeon dary in importance to those principles. Be sides editing the Atlanta Daily Sun from 1871 to 1873, he published; A Constitutional View of the War Between the States (1868-70) ; The Reviewers Reviewed (a reply to his critics) ; and A School History of the United States (1872). Consult: Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens ion Public and Private, with Letters and Speeches (Philadelphia, 1866) ; Johnston and Browne. Life of Alexander H. Stephens (ib., 1878; new ed. 1383).