Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A Biography (Revised)

by Thomas E. Schott

Book Overview

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,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807121061
• ISBN13: 9780807121061
• Release Date: October 1996
• Publisher: LSU Press
• Length: 584 Pages
• Weight: 1.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A Model Biography on a Tormented Statesman

Thomas Schott's biography of Alexander H. Stephens is a remarkable piece of scholarship that, best of all, is very accessible. If you only know Stephens as being VP under Jefferson Davis, this work will introduce you to one of the leading figures of the Antebellum South-despite his poor health and often tormented personality. Schott reveals how the various afflictions that Stephens faced at a young age (the loss of both parents, the separation from the rest of his family) shaped his personality and outlook on life. Schott guides the reader through the various political crises of the 1840s and 1850s and shows how Stephen, along with many other Southern Whigs, drifted along towards disunion. Most memorably, Schott examines the important role Stephens played in trying to keep Georgia in the Union and his important role in shaping the Confederate constitution. Schott also looks at Stephens' unhappy tenure in the Davis administration and his post-bellum political career which took him back to Congress and a short term as governor of Georgia. Schott is a good and sympathetic writer but he does not hesitate to take Stephens to task when needed (his comments on Stephens' odd campaign to become governor are scathing). Best of all, he is able to use both public and private primary sources to create a lasting portrait of an important statesman who seemed destined to combat against the tide at all times. There are some minor flaws and Schott could have done more with his subject's numerous (and often tedious alas) books after the war. Nonetheless this is one of the finest biographies of a nineteenth century American and deserves the highest praise.

Great Biography of Great Man

Schott has written a wonderful biography of a sensitive, inteolligent, complex human who was larger than his physique. Stephens was torn between doing what was best for his country [read as Georgia] and supporting the Union and Constitution he loved. This book belongs to every person interested in America's past. Read it and enjoy. See an interesting person and his fascinating times.

Excellent glimpse of Alexander Stephens

I never knew that Alexander Stephens was such a complex and contradictory man. Schott's bio is an enjoyable read in addition to being a thorough account of Stephens' life. Fortunately for history, he revealed himself intimately to his brother, and most of their correspondence has survived. Schott focused on Stephens himself and less on the antebellum South. Given the huge number of books out there detailing that topic, it is no loss when a bio is as good as this.

Good study on Stephens and all his contradictions

Alexander Stephens is the classic example of the Southern Whig, and shows why the Whig Party ultimately foundered on the rocks of slavery and sectionalism. While Stephens was devoted to Whig principles and the preservation of Union (like many other leading figures in the Confederate government, he was opposed to secession), he nonetheless rigidly opposed any perceived infrigement on Southern rights, as he viewed them. These two impulses within Stephens were of course mutually exclusive; like most other Southern Whigs, he was never able to reconcile the principles to which he was devoted.It is when examining Stephen's amazing attempts to rationalize his actions & justify them to himself that Schott's book is at its best. Much like Jefferson Davis, Stephens was obsessed with being right and with taking the moral high ground, and he devoted an amazing amount of energy in attempting to defend his positions, perhaps to others but I believe mostly to himself. Of course, Stephens was in the thick of every controversy in Congress in the 1850's, so the reader gets to watch him, along with the rest of the US, get swept along to the inevitable.A reader expecting a Civil War history will be disappointed. Stephens, despite being Vice President of the CSA, played only the most marginal of roles during the war. His role in the post-war South is similarly marginal, distinguished only by his role in helping to foster the Lost Cause and coining the phrase "War Between the States."The best section of the book deals with Stephens in Congress in the 1840's and 1850's, but like another reviewer has stated, the events of those times are not discussed in much detail, other than how they had an impact on Stephens. That having been said, I found Schott's discussion of the controversy surrounding the Wilmot Proviso to be as cogently framed as anything I have read. Schott also does a good job capturing the feeling of a country that has lost control & is careening towards catastrophe.This is about the only recent full-length treatment of Stephens that I know of, and generally is pretty good and well-recommended. It also contains an excellent bibliography that will provide you with other good source material.

Stephens, a Southern, Whig politician

Alexander H. Stephens was a prototypical, antebellum Southern Whig: scholarly, principled, and moral. Yet in many ways his life was compromised as he, along with other Southern politicians, was "compelled to defend the indefensible."Stephens despite the disadvantages of humble beginnings and a sickly, frail constitution was able, through some fortuitous and generous assistance on the part of others, to climb into the lower ranks of Southern society, first as a lawyer and then as a U. S. Congressman. There, Stephens found himself in entangled in such antebellum controversies as the Mexican Cession, the Wilmot Proviso, the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and the Lecompton controversy. Stephens as a Whig was a staunch defender of the Constitution, the Union, and the rule of law. He opposed the Texas annexation and the Mexican War as infringing on those cherished beliefs. However, Stephens was constantly walking a tightrope between his Whiggish principles and the political realities of the South over the issue of slavery. He supported Kansas-Nebraska, but by that time he had been forced to jump ship to the Democracy. Later he committed the apostasy of siding with the northern Democrat Douglas in the Lecompton controversy and then supported him for president in 1860. For this reader the author's coverage of these controversies gets a little confused by his focusing on the various tortured rationalizations of the various parties, including Stephens'.The author devotes much time to the state of Stephens health in this period (often sick), his mood swings (often in despair), and his need for recognition which is seen in his oratory, his obsessiveness in defending his personal honor (even resorting to challenges for duels), and his somewhat exaggerated views of his own importance. Stephens was a prolific writer of letters, especially to his younger brother Linton, throughout his life, and these are used well by the author to capture Stephens' thinking.Stephens was one of the leading Southern politicians who opposed the Southern secession. During the War, from his position as Vice-President of the Confederacy, he was a constant thorn in the side of Jefferson Davis, the President. Of course, Stephens construed his opposition as principled. But his opposition to such policies as conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus in the context of Southern survival seems wrong-headed. After the War, Stephens was returned to the House of Representatives and then served as governor of Georgia for four months before his death in 1883 at the age of seventy-one.At times this book becomes tedious in its detailing of the endless rationalizations and defensiveness of Stephens in his various political dealings through the years. His self-assignment of being more moral, pure, and principled than others wears thin. In addition, for such a lengthy book, it seems that only a glimpse of the broader world shows through and then through Stephens' views and machinations. The reader can b