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THE OTHER AMERICAN VICE PRESIDENT

© John S. Cooper

In the back of virtually every American History textbook you will find a list of American Presidents and Vice Presidents. But there is one American Vice President not included in those lists. He is Alexander Stephens, our other American Vice President. You see, he was never a Vice President of the United States. He was the one and only Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.

Alexander Stephens was born on February 11, 1812 near Crawfordville, in Taliaferro County, which was then part of Wilkes County, Georgia. He attended both public and private schools, and graduated from the University of Georgia at Athens in 1832. Alexander Stephens was very small and extremely frail. He never weighed over 100 pounds in his life, and suffered constant disease and depression. He had an ever-present pallor and was considered near death several times during his lifetime. His surprisingly small stature led to his nickname of “Little Ellick” by his colleagues. He had originally studied for the ministry, but never completed that study. He taught school for eighteen months, but the students were not kind to this short, frail man. He then studied law, and was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1834.

Stephens gained a reputation for his tremendous intellect, and quickly rose through the ranks of politics. One of his congressional colleagues once said that Stephens “carried more brains and more soul for the least flesh than any other man God Almighty ever made.” He was a member of the Georgia House of Representatives for six terms, from 1836-1841 and was elected to the Georgia Senate in 1842. While in the legislature, he opposed “vigilance committees” and “slicking clubs” which were the forerunner of the Ku Klux Klan.

Later in 1842, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the Twenty-eighth Congress to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Mark A. Cooper. He was re-elected as a Whig to the Twenty-ninth through the Thirty-first Congresses, as a Unionist to the Thirty-second Congress, and as a Democrat to the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from October 2, 1843 until March 3, 1859. He held several key posts in Congress, including Chairman of the Committee on Territories. He did not run for re-election in 1858.

During one campaign for Congress, Stephens was running against a huge hulk of a man named Judge Colquitt. During one debate, Judge Colquitt, who did not take Stephens very seriously, said with obvious contempt for Stephens’ size, “Why you little shrimp! I could swallow you whole and never know the difference!” Stephens immediately shot back, “If you did, there would be more brains in your belly than you ever had in your head!” Another version of the story has it happening during a heated exchange in Congress a short while later.

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