ALEXANDER HAMILTON STEPHENS 1812-1883 To record the life of Alexander Stephens is to write the value of honesty and truthfulness. He became the ideal statesman of millions of his countrymen not only because he was far-seeing and judicious, and dispassionate, but because the had the rarer quality of perfect sincerity. He was often wrong in his convictions, his judgment was often at fault, and, like many other statesmen in the feverish years that preceded the Civil War, he was sometimes swayed unconsciously by prejudice. But he would tolerate no political juggling, he spoke what he thought without fear; his hobby was sincerity. He considered public issues in the light of practical truth, stripped of the wrappings of sentiment and passion. In this he resembled Lincoln. Such men are seldom bred in the troubled atmosphere of American politics. Lincoln, of the North, and Stephens, of the South, stand alone in the epoch of the Civil War. Alexander Stephens was born in Taliaferro County, Georgia, on February 11, 1812. He was raised on the soil of slavery, and saw it at its best and worst. He became a lawyer, and, in 1836, was elected to the State Legislature, after a hot campaign in which he antagonized the popular idea of nullification. In 1843 he was sent to Congress, where he represented Georgia until the outbreak of the Civil War. He was a believer in the doctrine of State rights. He considered slavery a righteous institution, and sought to perpetuate it, but he thought the policy of secession was an unwise one. It was his settled conviction that the Union was essential to prosperity. He had the courage to state his views on the eve of rebellion, and at secession conventions, where he constituted an undaunted but hopeless minority. When Georgia formally left the Union he went with his State, in accordance with his idea of State rights. His fearless advocacy of peace won him many followers among the cooler heads at the South, and he was elected Vice-President of the Confederacy. 66 Stephen's attempts to negotiate an amicable settlement of the whole question during the early days of the war, his disagreements with the Confederate Cabinet, and his arrest and detention at Fort Warren in Boston Harbor after Lee's surrender, are matters of history. In 1874 he was elected to Congress from Georgia. He served continuously in that body until his resignation in 1882. During this time he wrote "The War Between the States," which is recognized as the best constitutional defence of the South's attitude. He spent the closing years of his life at Liberty Hall, his plantation near Crawfordville, Georgia. Here he was surrounded by his former slaves, who refused to leave him when they found themselves free at the close of the war. His speech on "The Future of the South" is a good example of the many speeches he made in behalf of peace and harmony. He died at Atlanta on March 4, 1883. THE FUTURE OF THE SOUTH Delivered before the Legislature of Georgia, February 22, 1866 G ENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: I appear before you in answer to your call. This call coming in the imposing form it does, and under the circumstances it does, requires a response from me. You have assigned to me a very high, a very honorable and responsible position. This position you know I did not seek. Most willingly would I have avoided it; and nothing but an extraordinary sense of duty could have induced me to yield my own disinclinations and aversions to your wishes and judgment in the matter. For this unusual manifestation of esteem and confidence, I return you my profoundest acknowledgements of gratitude. Of one thing only can I give you any assurance, and that is, if I shall be permitted to discharge the trusts thereby imposed, they will be discharged with a singleness of purpose to the public good. The great object with me now is to see a restoration if possible, of peace, prosperity and constitutional liberty in this once happy, but now disturbed, agitated, and distracted country. To this end, all my energies and efforts, to the extent of their powers, will be devoted. You ask my views on the existing state of affairs; our duties at the present, and the prospects of the future? This is a task from which, under other circumstances I might very well shrink. He who ventures to speak, and to give counsel and advice in times of peril, or disaster, assumes no enviable position. Far be that rashness from me which sometimes prompts the forward to rush in where angels might fear to tread. In responding, therefore, briefly to your inquiries, I feel, I trust, the full weight and magnitude of the subject. It involves the welfare of millions now living, and that of many more millions who are to come after us. I am also fully impressed with the consciousness of the inconceivably small effect of what I shall say upon the momentous results involved in the subject itself. It is with these feelings I offer my mite of counsel at your request. And in the outset of the undertaking, limited as it is intended to be to a few general ideas only, well may I imitate an illustrious example of invoking aid from on high; "that I may say nothing on this occasion which may compromit the rights, the honor, the dignity, or best interests of my country." I mean specially the rights, honor, dignity and best interests of the people of Georgia. With their sufferings, their losses, their misfortunes, their bereavements, and their present utter prostration, my heart is in deepest sympathy. We have reached that point in our affairs at which the great question before us is-" To be or not to be?"-and if to be-How? Hope, ever springing in the human breast, prompts, even under the greatest calamities and adversities, never to despair. Adversity is a severe school, a terrible crucible; both for individuals and communities. We are now in this school, this crucible, and should bear in mind that it is never negative in its action. It is always positive. It is ever decided in its effects, one way or the other. It either makes better or worse. It either brings out unknown vices, or arouses dormant virtues. In morals its tendency is to make saints or reprobates—in politics to make heroes or desperadoes. The first indication of its working for good, to which hope looks anxiously, is the manifestation of a full consciousness of its nature and extent; and the most promising grounds of hope for possible good from our present troubles, or of things with us getting better instead of worse, is the evident general realization, on the part of our people, of their present situation; of the evils now upon them, and of the greater ones still impending. These it is not my purpose to exaggerate if I could; that would be useless; nor to lessen or extenuate; that would be worse than useless. All fully understand and realize them. They feel them. It is well they do. Can these evils upon us-the absence of law; the want of protection and security of person and property, without which civilization cannot advance-be removed? or can those greater ones which threaten our very political existence, be averted? These are the questions. It is true we have not the control of all the remedies, even if these questions could be satisfactorily answered. Our fortunes and destiny are not entirely in our own hands. Yet there are some things that we may, and can, and ought, in my judgment, to do, from which no harm can come, and from which some good may follow, in bettering our present condition. States and communities as well as individuals, when they have done the best they can in view of surrounding circumstances, with all the lights they have before them-let results be what they may-can at least enjoy the consolation-no small recompense that of having performed their duty, and of having a conscience void of offence before God and man. This, if no more valuable result, will, I trust, attend the doing of what I propose. The first great duty, then, I would enjoin at this time, is the exercise of the simple, though difficult and trying, but nevertheless indispensable quality of patience. Patience requires of those afflicted to bear and to suffer with fortitude whatever ills may befall them. This is often, and especially is it the case with us now, essential for their ultimate removal by any instrumentalities whatever. We are in the condition of a man with a dislocated limb, or a broken leg, and a very bad compound fracture at that. How it became broken should not be with him a question of so much importance, as how it can be restored to health, vigor and strength. This requires of him, as the highest duty to himself, to wait quietly and patiently in splints and bandages until nature resumes her active powers -until the vital functions perform their office. The knitting of the bones and the granulation of the flesh require time; perfect quiet and repose, even under the severest pain, is necessary. It will not do to make too great haste to get well; an attempt to walk too soon will only make the matter worse. We must or ought now, therefore, in a similar manner to discipline ourselves to the same or like degree of patience. I know the anxiety and restlessness of the popular mind to be fully on our feet again-to walk abroad as we once did-to enjoy once more the free outdoor air of heaven, with the perfect use of all our limbs. I know how trying it is to be denied representation |