THE OTHER AMERICAN VICE PRESIDENT
admission that slavery was the main issue in the war hindered foreign governments from recognizing or aiding the Confederacy for fear of angering their citizens who were against slavery.
Stephens was also an early advocate of making peace, and led the Confederate delegation to the Hampton Roads Peace Conference in February 1865. There he met with President Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward. The Peace Conference was unsuccessful. Stephens and the other Confederate delegates hoped for peace for the “two countries” but Lincoln demanded complete surrender and re-union. In April of that year, after the collapse of the Confederacy and the end of the Civil War, Stephens was arrested and held prisoner for almost six months in Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. After he was released he returned to his home in Georgia.
In 1866, Stephens was elected by Georgia to the U.S. Senate, but never took his seat. The Senate refused to seat any of the newly elected southern members of Congress because their states had not been properly “reconstructed” according to the Congressional guidelines. Stephens returned to Georgia and began to rebuild his fortune, which had been lost during the war. He wrote his first book, “A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States,” from 1867-1870. It is still considered the ablest defense of states rights and the right of secession. Through this and other books he wrote, he restored his financial wealth.
In 1872, he was again elected as a Democrat to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia. He served from 1873 until he resigned in 1882 when he was elected Governor of Georgia. He only served as governor for a few months, dying in Atlanta on March 4, 1883. In spite of a lifetime of being the very picture of poor health, Stephens lived to be 71 years old.
A colleague once remarked that Stephens’ ego was so large that “he won’t be satisfied until he corrects the proofs of his own obituary.” Stephens got the opportunity to do just that. The Atlanta Constitution prepared an obituary one of the times Stephens was reported to by very near death with only a very short time to live. When Stephens recovered, the editor sent the obit to him and asked him to edit the piece. Stephens cheerfully edited the article and returned it to the newspaper office.
One of our more colorful political leaders, Stephens is all but forgotten in the
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