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Hall of Presidents & First Ladies

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Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Hall of Presidents & First Ladies
Phone:
+1 717-334-5717

Address:
789 Baltimore St, Gettysburg, PA 17325-2611

Alexander Hamilton Stephens was an American politician who served as the 50th Governor of Georgia from 1882 until his death in 1883. He also served as the only Vice President of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1865. A member of the Democratic Party, Stephens represented the state of Georgia in the United States House of Representatives prior to becoming governor. Stephens attended Franklin College and established a legal practice in his home town of Crawfordville, Georgia. After serving in both houses of the Georgia General Assembly, he won election to Congress, taking his seat in 1843. He became a leading Southern Whig and strongly opposed the Mexican–American War. After the war, Stephens was a prominent supporter of the Compromise of 1850 and helped draft the Georgia Platform, which opposed secession. A proponent of the expansion of slavery into the territories, Stephens also helped pass the Kansas–Nebraska Act. As the Whig Party collapsed in the 1850s, Stephens eventually joined the Democratic Party and worked with President James Buchanan to admit Kansas as a state under the Lecompton Constitution. Stephens declined to seek re-election in 1858, but continued to publicly advocate against secession. After Georgia and other Southern states seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, Stephens was elected as the Confederate Vice President. Stephens's Cornerstone Speech of March 1861 defended slavery in the most uncompromising terms, though after the war he tried to distance himself from his earlier sentiments. In the course of the war, he became increasingly critical of President Jefferson Davis's policies, especially conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus. In February 1865, he was one of the commissioners who met with Abraham Lincoln at the abortive Hampton Roads Conference to discuss peace terms. After the war, Stephens was imprisoned until October 1865. The following year, the Georgia legislature elected Stephens to the United States Senate, but the Senate declined to seat him due to his role in the Civil War. He won election to the House of Representatives in 1873 and held that office until 1882, when he resigned from Congress to become Governor of Georgia. Stephens served as governor until his death in March 1883.
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