Alexander H. Stephens
Born February 11, 1812
Crawfordsville, Georgia
Died March 4, 1883
Atlanta, Georgia
Vice president of the Confederate
States of America
Despite his office, he became
one of the most vocal critics of Confederate
president Jefferson Davis
The Confederacy's "foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and moral condition.
As a prominent Georgia politician, Alexander H. Stephens opposed his state's decision to secede (withdraw) from the Union at the beginning of the Civil War. Nevertheless, he actively participated in forming the Confederate government and ended up becoming the vice president of the new Southern nation. Shortly after taking office, however, Stephens began disagreeing with Confederate president Jefferson Davis (1808–1889; see entry) over the need to create a strong central government to manage the war effort effectively. Stephens believed that the right of individual states to decide issues within their borders for themselves was more important than the needs of the Confederacy. "He could not understand that if the war were to be won, great powers must be entrusted to those who had the task of waging the nation's war," Rudolph Von Abele explained in Alexander H.
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