furniture as he needs are also among the furnishings of the room. One of the pictures on the walls is "Faith at the Cross," the gift of some lady friend to Mr. Stephens while imprisoned at Fort Warren. On the worsted hearth-rug in the winter, but on the grass in summer, lounges a huge brown mastiff named Troup. Not far off is a little black terrier with a chronic growl. He is called Frank. Then a restless yellow pup sometimes intrudes, but is generally sent away with the proper rebuke. He bears the appropriate name of Sir Binjo Binks."

Most of Mr. Stephens's literary work, including his great constitutional history of the war between the States, was accomplished at Liberty Hall, ofttimes amid bodily distress and pain and at midnight hours when sleep refused to give him repose. The spacious veranda which ran along the eastern side of the rear extension was the scene of the famous conversations which so often took place between Mr. Stephens and the notables who flocked to see him when he sojourned at Liberty Hall. Perhaps no distinguished visitor came more frequently than Robert Toombs. Most of the negroes who were owned by Mr. Stephens at the close of the war remained on the place; and when they became too old and feeble to care for themselves he saw that they fared as comfortably as when they were able to work. The dogs about the place were Mr. Stephens's special favorites; and the interest which he took in his dumb animals recalls what his bodyguard said about him when he came to Atlanta in 1883 to be inaugurated: "Mars Aleck," said he, "is kinder ter dogs than mos' people is ter folks."

Judge Kontz says that on one occasion he was telling Mr. Stephens of the death of his pet dog.

"Did you cry?" inquired the old statesman, with evident seriousness.

"No," returned Judge Kontz. "But I felt the loss keenly."

"Well," said Mr. Stephens, "the hardest cry I ever had was when one of my dogs died."

This may have been the faithful animal for whose tombstone an epitaph was written, supposed to have come from the pen of Linton Stephens, in which the dog was characterized as "a satire upon the human race, but an ornament to his own." It recalls the tombstone which Lord Byron caused to be erected at Newstead Abbey over his own famous dog, whose epitaph describes him as the poet's friend and closes with the pathetic line—

"I never knew but one, and here he lies."

From this ideal home retreat Mr. Stephens was soon called back again into public life by the events which precipitated the war between the States. The school of politics to which he belonged did not for one moment permit him to contest the right of secession; but he looked upon secession more as an abstract right than as an expedient remedy for the evils which then existed. He wished to preserve the Union if this patriotic end could be secured without sacrificing principles and interests which were far dearer; and even after the election of Mr. Lincoln he failed to see how secession could be fully justified. He did not agree with Mr. Cobb that better terms could be made without the Union than within. He believed that secession meant war. He did not agree with those who

preached peaceable secession. Moreover, he felt that adequate means of redress could be found without resorting to such extreme measures. Consequently in the speech he made before the General Assembly of Georgia on May 14, 1860, he strongly argued against this course, pointing out the disastrous consequences which were bound to follow; and, viewed in the light of the subsequent years, this speech, which uterly failed to arrest the tide of sentiment, seems nevertheless to have been inspired by prophetic wisdom.

Though Mr. Stephens bitterly opposed the ordinance of secession on the floor of the State convention, advocating in lieu thereof the substitute of Governor Johnson, he nevertheless signed the ordinance when the majority had spoken, and loyally planted himself under the sovereign. flag which Georgia had now unfurled.

In opposing secession Mr. Stephens had been confirmed in his views by assurances from Mr. Lincoln himself. Under date of December 22, 1860, the Presidentelect had written him that there was "no more danger to be feared from the incoming administration than there was in the days of Washington." But the South felt that the success of the Republican party, if it did not mean the extinction of slavery, meant the overthrow of the equilib rium which had been maintained between free and slave States, making ultimate extinction follow; and such being the case, it was time to put all discord and strife in the nation effectually at rest by invoking the constitutional right of secession.

Elected to the Provisional Congress at Montgomery, much to his surprise, since he had so ardently opposed secession, he was still further regaled with the unexpected

by being made the Vice-President of the newly organized Confederate government. It was a tribute of the most pronounced character to his conservative statesmanship,

-a testimonial of golden coinage from his fellow citizens which he treasured among his proudest possessions. He accepted this lofty station; but radical differences between Mr. Davis and himself upon administrative policies virtually nullified his influence at Richmond. He offered no embarrassing opposition to what was done or proposed, but he refused to compromise convictions and rather than put himself in the attitude of endorsing tacitly what he could not conscientiously approve he managed to find Liberty Hall more attractive than Richmond, whenever release from official obligations permitted him to journey southward.

During the summer of 1863, when the Confederate cause, following the victory of General Lee at Chancellorsville, was at floodtide, Mr. Stephens sought to open negotiations with the authorities at Washington, ostensibly for the purpose of renewing the cartel for an exchange of prisoners, but really with the ulterior object in view of finding some basis of settlement on which to end the struggle without further hostilities. But he was not permitted to start to Washington with this olive-branch until after Lee had crossed over into Pennsylvania. Gettysburg turned the scale of fortune before he reached Newport News; and, being unable to proceed further north, he returned to Georgia. It is idle to speculate at this late day on what might have been gained if Mr. Stephens could have consummated his negotiations in the high sum

mer of 1863, when the pulse of Confederate life beat lustily and the flag of Lee's army was swept by the favoring gales; but something at least might have been saved from the wreckage before all except honor was eventually lost in the devouring flames of Appomattox.

Controversy is still raging about the famous Hampton Roads conference which took place in the spring of 1865; and, without seeking to throw any new light upon this incident of the last bloody chapter of the war, it appears that the commissioners had no authority to act and little was accomplished beyond an exchange of diplomatic courtesies and personal felicitations. The kindly feelings existing between Mr. Stephens and Mr. Lincoln were attested by an interview in which Mr. Lincoln consented to use his friendly offices in having Lieutenant John A. Stephens, Mr. Stephens's nephew, then a prisoner on Johnson's Island, in Lake Erie, released or exchanged; and this promise he faithfully kept. An amusing incident of the conference was the joke which Mr. Lincoln perpetrated at the expense of Mr. Stephens. Amused at the spectacle of seeing the Confederate Vice-President peel off so many wraps on entering the room, he declared that Mr. Stephens was "the smallest nubbin he had ever seen to have so many shucks."

Following the war Mr. Stephens was arrested on May 11, 1865, and imprisoned for several months in Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Never too robust, this prison experience came near proving fatal; but Mr. Stephens was accustomed to running neck-and-neck races with spectral phantoms. Soon after returning home he