Disunion: The Final Q & A
Four years ago, Disunion convened a panel of experts to discuss the outbreak of the Civil War. Now, those experts are back to discuss the war’s end, and its legacy.
Alexander H. Stephens was the vice president of the Confederacy under Jefferson Davis, its president. Born near Crawfordville, Ga., in 1812, Stephens attended private and public schools. He graduated from the University of Georgia at Athens in 1832. He was later admitted to the bar in Crawfordville in 1834.
Stephens, elected as a Whig to the 28th Congress, later became a member of the secession convention of Georgia in 1861, which elected him to the Confederate Congress. He was chosen by that Congress as Vice President of the provisional government. He served as one of the commissioners representing the Confederacy at the Hampton Roads conference in February 1865. After the Civil War, Stephens was imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, for five months, until October 1865.
He was elected to the United States Senate in 1866 by the first legislature convened under the new State constitution but did not present his credentials since Georgia had not been readmitted to the Union. He was elected as a Democrat to the 43rd Congress, filling a vacancy, and elected to the 44th and to three succeeding Congresses and served from December 1873, until his resignation in November 1882.
Stephens was elected governor of Georgia in 1882 and served until his death in Atlanta, Ga., on March 4, 1883. He is buried on his estate, “Liberty Hall,” near Crawfordville, Ga. — adapted from "The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress"