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ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS

Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, has for years been a leading character in the politics of the country, and has been reckoned by all who know him, or of his acts in Congress, as one of the first men which the South has sent into public life. He is a native of Georgia, where he was born in the year 1812. His grandfather, the Hon. Alexander Stephens, was an Englishman and Jacobite, and came to this country about the year 1746. He joined the American Colonial army – was present at Braddock's defeat, and took a very active part in the Revolutionary War, and settled down, after it was over, in Pennsylvania. In 1795, he emigrated to Georgia, and finally settled down on the place now occupied by his grandson – the subject of this sketch – in Taliaferro County. He died on this place, in 1813, at the age of ninety-three. The year before, young Alexander was born, his mother dying while he was an infant. His father was comparatively poor, but was industrious and virtuous, so that he maintained a high reputation in the town of his birth. He died when Alexander was only fourteen years of age, leaving each of his children a trifle over four hundred dollars as their portion. Alexander was sickly and emaciated, and little was hoped of him. He had attended a common school in the neighborhood, and his uncle kept him still in attendance upon it. Of course this school was a very inferior one, not at all equal to one of the common schools of New England. But the boy learned enough there to excite his ambition, and he made known his desire to gain a classical education. He was without sufficient funds, but generous friends immediately came forward and furnished him with all the money he needed, which he would only accept as a loan. He now went to his studies alone, and in less than a year, without a teacher, fitted himself for a freshman class, and entered the Georgia University. After the usual four years' course, he graduated with unusually high honors. Having been an invalid since his birth, the severe application of his college course left him in a state of great prostration, and he was obliged to leave his studies and travel for his health. In May, 1834, he commenced the study of the law, and he was soon admitted to the bar. His first "case" was an action against a landlord for a stolen trunk – the trunk being his own. He gained his case and trunk easily. The next was a very important one. "A wealthy man was guardian of his grandchild, its mother having married to a second husband. In course of time, the mother desired possession of the child, which was resisted by the grandfather, who claimed it as legal guardian. The step-father, desiring to please his wife, came to young Stephens and engaged him as counsel to set aside the guardianship, older lawyers declining on the score of the hopelessness of the case, and perhaps a fear to encounter the learned array of counsel engaged on the opposite side. The trial came off before five judges, no jury being called. Owing to the respectability of the parties, and the novel scene of a sickly boy, without any legal practical experience, opposed to the most veteran lawyers at the bar, the case attracted unusual attention. The result was, that the guardianship was set aside, and the child was restored to the possession of its mother, and young Stephens at once took a prominent place at the bar, from that time, being engaged on one side or the other of every important case that was tried in the county."

Mr. Stephens' success was now so marked that he was sought after to remove to some prominent city, but he refused, preferring to remain with his old friends, and he was in a few years able, out of his earnings, to purchase his grandfather's estate, and settled upon it. The subjoined political sketch of Mr. Stephens is by one of his personal friends – Mr. Thorpe – and is in the main correct:

"In 1836, against his wishes, Mr. Stephens was run by his friends for the legislature. On the Wednesday before the election he made his first stump-speech – this was followed by another on Saturday, and still another at the polls on election day. He was triumphantly returned against a bitter opposition. He signalized his appearance as a legislator in defence of the bill which proposed 'that Georgia should launch out in certain internal improvements,' and in spite of the formidable opposition, his speech probably saved the bill, and thus inaugurated the commencement of the present prosperity of the 'Empire State of the South.' In the six years which he remained in the legislature he took a most prominent part in all important matters, particularly the one which proposed a change in the Constitution. The instrument at the time in force said that it should only be amended by a bill passed by two-thirds of each branch of the legislature at two consecutive sessions.

"The difficulty seemed insurmountable, if opposition to a change existed in either branch of the legislature, and the opponents of the bill appeared to be impregnable. Stephens took the ground that when the constitution is silent upon the mode of its amendment, then the legislature can call a convention; that when a constitution points out a particular mode in which it may be amended, without excluding other modes, then the legislature may adopt some other mode than that pointed out; but when a constitution provides a mode for its amendment, and prohibits all other modes, then that mode only can be taken which is provided for. Jenkins, Crawford, Howard, and others, took the opposite side, opposed the bill, and voted for a convention; the universal opinion was that the convention could be called, and the convention was called by an overwhelming majority, which passed the proper amendments, but they were never ratified by the people.

"As a member of the legislature, he opposed the organization of the Court of Errors, believing that the judiciary as established was the best in the world, and that the change would only multiply difficulties, without gaining any additional certainty to the administration of the law; the bill was not passed while Mr. Stephens was in the legislature.

"In 1842, he went to the State Senate, opposed the Central Bank, and took an active part in the questions of internal improvements and districting the State, which then divided parties.

"In 1843, he was nominated for Congress, on a general ticket, and commenced the canvass with a majority of two thousand votes against him, and came out of the contest with thirty-five hundred majority; and as he discussed on the stump matters entirely relating to local interests, his eloquence and power undoubtedly carried the State. His entry into Congress was signalized by extraordinary circumstances; his right to a seat was denied. Stephens, in the discussion that ensued, made a speech in favor of the power of Congress to district the States, though he was elected in defiance of the law on a general ticket, and then left the House to decide upon his claims. He was permitted to take his seat.

"Up to this time Mr. Stephens was a prominent Whig, having been bred in that school of States' rights men of the South who sustained Harrison in 1840; but upon the question of the annexation of Texas coming up, he favored that bill, and for the first time affiliated with the Democracy. In the contest between Taylor and Cass, he supported Taylor. On the compromises of 1850, he was willing to support any measure that did away with Congressional restriction, leaving the territories to come into the Union with or without slavery. In the Mexican war, he stood beside Mr. Calhoun, and held that the troops should not be advanced; but after the war commenced, he sustained it with vigor.

"The guaranty that four slave States should be carved out of the territory of Texas was secured mainly by Mr. Stephens' untiring labor and foresight. In 1854, he advocated the Kansas bill, which declared null and void the Missouri restriction, for the purpose of carrying out the principle of 1850, advanced in the Utah and New Mexican bills. The year 1855 was the most interesting and critical period of his life, which he spent fighting the Know Nothing organization, in the commencement of which he found all his early friends and associates for the first time opposed to him. In the month of May, of this year, he wrote his celebrated letter against the order, addressed to Col. Thos. W. Thomas. The effect of it was overwhelming, not only in his own State, but in Virginia and the adjoining States. His position was sustained, and commencing with three thousand majority against him in his own district, he came out of the contest with nearly three thousand majority.

"When Mr. Stephens rises to speak there is a sort of electric communication among the audience, as if something was about to be uttered that was worth listening to. The loungers take their seats, and the talkers become silent, thus paying an involuntary compliment to Mr. Stephens' talents and high claims as a gentleman. At first his voice is scarcely distinguishable, but in a few moments you are surprised at its volume, and you are soon convinced that his lungs are in perfect order, and as his ideas flow, you are not surprised at the rapt attention he commands. His style of speaking is singularly polished, but he conceals his art, and appears, to the superficial observer, to be eloquent by inspiration. The leading characteristic of his mind is great practical good sense, for his arguments are always of the most solid and logical kind; hence his permanent influence as a statesman, while his bright scintillations of wit, and profuse adornment, secure him a constant popularity as an orator. Possessed of a mind too great to be restrained by mere partisan influence, he has therefore the widest possible field of action, at one time heading a forlorn hope and leading it to victory, at another, giving grace and character to a triumphant majority. Common as it is to impugn the motives of many of our public servants, and charge them directly with corruption, Mr. Stephens has escaped without even the taint of suspicion, an inflexible honesty of purpose on his part, as a governing principle, is awarded to him by his veriest political foe."

Mr. Stephens' position in Georgia, in reference to calling a convention to frame a new constitution, is not very distinctly stated by Mr. Thorpe. A bill was introduced into the legislature providing for the calling of a convention to remodel the State constitution. Mr. Stephens opposed the bill because the constitution, as it then stood, provided that only by a two-thirds vote of both branches of the legislature, at two consecutive sessions, could any amendment be put upon the constitution. Mr. Stephens argued that, under these circumstances, it would be revolutionary to pass the bill calling a convention. But the bill passed – and a convention submitted various amendments to the people, all of which were repealed. Since then Mr. Stephens' views have been generally adopted by the people of Georgia, for the constitution has been amended in the mode pointed out in that document itself. Since then, too, Mr. Stephens' position has been sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dorr case.

We have noticed the fact that Mr. Stephens, when young and poor, was furnished with the means to procure an excellent classical and legal education. He repaid this money to the parties who so generously aided him when help was of so much importance to his welfare. Not only this: since he has himself been so successful, Mr. Stephens has been constantly engaged in helping poor young men to an education. He has carried upward of thirty young men through a collegiate or academic course within the last fifteen or twenty years, and has, in this way, repaid the generosity of his friends to him. This single incident will show what his character is for generosity.

Mr. Stephens is one of the most effective public speakers in the country, whether it be in the court-room, the legislative hall, or before the people. During the last Congress he was the leader of the Democracy in the House of Representatives, and by his management secured the admission of Oregon into the Union. Perhaps the finest speech he ever made in Congress was the closing one in the Oregon debate. We subjoin a few quotations.

One in reference to the anti-negro clause of the Oregon constitution:

"And those who profess to be the exclusive friends of negroes, as they now do, so far as that constitution was concerned, voted to banish them forever from the State, just as Oregon has done. Whether this banishment be right or wrong, it is no worse in Oregon than it was in Kansas. But, on the score of humanity, we of the South do not believe that those who, in Kansas or Oregon, banish this race from their limits, are better friends of the negro than we are, who assign them that place among us to which by nature they are fitted, and in which they add so much more to their own happiness and comfort, besides to the common well-being of all. We give them a reception. We give them shelter. We clothe them. We feed them. We provide for their every want, in health and in sickness, in infancy and old age. We teach them to work. We educate them in the arts of civilization and the virtues of Christianity, much more effectually and successfully than you can ever do on the coasts of Africa. And, without any cost to the public, we render them useful to themselves and to the world. The first lesson in civilization and Christianity to be taught to the barbarous tribes, wherever to be found, is the first great curse against the human family – that in the sweat of their face they shall eat their bread. Under our system, our tuition, our guardianship and fostering care, these people, exciting so much misplaced philanthropy, have attained a higher degree of civilization than their race has attained anywhere else upon the face of the earth. The Topeka people excluded them; they, like the neighbors we read of, went round them; we, like the good Samaritans, shun not their destitution or degradation – we alleviate both. But let that go.

"Oregon has, in this matter, done no worse than the gentleman's friends did in Kansas. I think she acted unwisely in it– that is her business, not mine. But the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Stanton] questions me, how could a negro in Oregon ever get his freedom under the constitution they have adopted? I tell him, under their constitution a slave cannot exist there. The fundamental law is against it. But, he asks, how could his freedom ever be established, as no free person of color can sue in her courts? Neither can they in Georgia; still our courts are open to this class of people, who appear by prochein ami or guardian. Nor is there any great hardship in this; for married women cannot sue in their own names anywhere where the common law prevails. Minors also have to sue by guardian or next friend. We have suits continually in our tribunals by persons claiming to be free persons of color. They cannot sue in their own names, but by next friend. They are not citizens; we do not recognize them as such; but still the courts are open; and just so will they be in Oregon, if the question is ever raised."

The closing portions of the speech give such a good idea of the style of Mr. Stephens' oratorical powers, that we must quote them:

"Let us not do an indirect wrong, for fear that the recipient from our hands of what is properly due will turn upon us and injure us. Statesmen in the line of duty should never consult their fears. Where duty leads, there we may never fear to tread. In the political world, great events and changes are rapidly crowding upon us. To these we should not be insensible. As wise men, we should not attempt to ignore them. We need not close our eyes, and suppose the sun will cease to shine because we see not the light. Let us rather, with eyes and mind wide awake, look around us and see where we are, whence we have come, and where we shall soon be, borne along by the rapid, swift, and irresistible car of time. This immense territory to the west has to be peopled. It is now peopling. New States are fast growing up; and others, not yet in embryo, will soon spring into existence. Progress and development mark everything in nature – human societies, as well as everything else. Nothing in the physical world is still; life and motion are in everything; so in the mental, moral, and political. The earth is never still. The great central orb is ever moving. Progress is the universal law governing all things – animate as well as inanimate. Death itself is but the beginning of a new life in a new form. Our government and institutions are subject to this all-pervading power. The past wonderfully exemplifies its influence, and gives us some shadows of the future.

"This is the sixteenth session that I have been here, and within that brief space of fifteen years, we have added six States to the Union – lacking but one of being more than half the original thirteen. Upward of twelve hundred thousand square miles of territory – a much larger area than was possessed by the whole United States at the time of the treaty of peace in 1783 – have been added to our domain. At this time the area of our Republic is greater than that of any five of the greatest powers in Europe all combined; greater than that of the Roman empire in the brightest days of her glory; more extensive than were Alexander's dominions when he stood on the Indus, and wept that he had no more worlds to conquer. Such is our present position; nor are we yet at the end of our acquisitions.

"Our internal movements, within the same time, have not been less active in progress and development than those external. A bare glance at these will suffice. Our tonnage, when I first came to Congress, was but a little over two million; now it is upward of five million, more than double. Our exports of domestic manufactures were only eleven million dollars in round numbers; now they are upward of thirty million. Our exports of domestic produce, staples, etc., were then under one hundred million dollars; now they are upward of three hundred million! The amount of coin in the United States, was at that time about one hundred million; now it exceeds three hundred million. The cotton crop then was but fifty-four million; now it is upward of one hundred and sixty million dollars. We had then not more than five thousand miles of railroad in operation; we have now not less than twenty-six thousand miles – more than enough to encircle the globe – and at a cost of more than one thousand million dollars. At that time, Prof. Morse was engaged in one of the rooms of this Capitol in experimenting on his unperfected idea of an electric telegraph – and there was as much doubt about his success, as there is at present about the Atlantic cable; but now there are more than thirty-five thousand miles in extent of these iron nerves sent forth in every direction through the land, connecting the most distant points, and uniting all together as if under the influence of a common living sensorium. This is but a glance at the surface; to enter within and take the range of other matters – schools, colleges, the arts, and various mechanical and industrial pursuits, which add to the intelligence, wealth and prosperity of a people, and mark their course in the history of nations, would require time; but in all would be found alike astonishing results.

"This progress, sir, is not to be arrested. It will go on. The end is not yet. There are persons now living who will see over a hundred million human beings within the present boundaries of the United States, to say nothing of future extension, and perhaps double the number of States we now have, should the Union last. For myself, I say to you, my southern colleagues on this floor, that I do not apprehend danger to our constitutional rights from the bare fact of increasing the number of States with institutions dissimilar to ours. The whole governmental fabric of the United States is based and founded upon the idea of dissimilarity in the institutions of the respective members. Principles, not numbers, are our protection. When these fail, we have like all other people, who, knowing their rights, dare maintain them, nothing to rely upon but the justice of our cause, our own right arms and stout hearts. With these feelings and this basis of action, whenever any State comes and asks admission, as Oregon does, I am prepared to extend her the hand of welcome, without looking into her constitution further than to see that it is republican in form, upon our well-known American models.

"When aggression comes, if come it ever shall, then the end draweth nigh. Then, if in my day, I shall be for resistance, open, bold, and defiant. I know of no allegiance superior to that due the hearthstones of the homestead. This I say to all. I lay no claim to any sentiment of nationality not founded upon the patriotism of a true heart, and I know of no such patriotism that does not centre at home. Like the enlarging circle upon the surface of smooth waters, however, this can and will, if unobstructed, extend to the utmost limits of a common country. Such is my nationality – such my sectionalism – such my patriotism. Our fathers of the South joined your fathers of the North in resistance to a common aggression from their fatherland; and if they were justified in rising to right a wrong inflicted by a parent country, how much more ought we, should the necessity ever come, to stand justified before an enlightened world, in righting a wrong from even those we call brothers. That necessity, I trust, will never come.

"What is to be our future, I do not know. I have no taste for indulging in speculations about it. I would not, if I could, raise the veil that wisely conceals it from us. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,' is a good precept in everything pertaining to human action. The evil I would not anticipate; I would rather strive to prevent its coming; and one way, in my judgment, to prevent it, is, while here, in all things to do what is right and proper to be done under the Constitution of the United States; nothing more, and nothing less. Our safety, as well as the prosperity of all parts of the country, so long as this government lasts, lies mainly in a strict conformity to the laws of its existence. Growth is one of these. The admission of new States, is one of the objects expressly provided for. How are they to come in? With just such constitutions as the people in each may please to make for themselves, so it is republican in form. This is the ground the South has ever stood upon. Let us not abandon it now. It is founded upon a principle planted in the compact of Union itself; and more essential to us than all others besides; that is, the equality of the States, and the reserved rights of the people of the respective States. By our system, each State, however great the number, has the absolute right to regulate all its internal affairs as she pleases, subject only to her obligations under the Constitution of the United States. With this limitation, the people of Massachusetts have the perfect right to do as they please upon all matters relating to their internal policy; the people of Ohio have the right to do the same; the people of Georgia the same; of California the same; and so with all the rest.

"Such is the machinery of our theory of self-government by the people. This is the great novelty of our peculiar system, involving a principle unknown to the ancients, an idea never dreamed of by Aristotle or Plato. The union of several distinct, independent communities upon this basis, is a new principle in human governments. It is now a problem in experiment for the people of the nineteenth century upon this continent to solve. As I behold its workings in the past and at the present, while I am not sanguine, yet I am hopeful of its successful solution. The most joyous feeling of my heart is the earnest hope that it will, for the future, move on as peacefully, prosperously, and brilliantly, as it has in the past. If so, then we shall exhibit a moral and political spectacle to the world something like the prophetic vision of Ezekiel, when he saw a number of distinct beings or living creatures, each with a separate and distinct organism, having the functions of life within itself, all of one external likeness, and all, at the same time, mysteriously connected with one common animating spirit pervading the whole, so that when the common spirit moved they all moved; their appearance and their work being, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel; and whithersoever the common spirit went, thither the others went, all going together; and when they went, he heard the noise of their motion like the noise of great waters, as the voice of the Almighty. Should our experiment succeed, such will be our exhibition – a machinery of government so intricate, so complicated, with so many separate and distinct parts, so many independent States, each perfect in the attributes and functions of sovereignty, within its own jurisdiction, all, nevertheless, united under the control of a common directing power for external objects and purposes, may natural enough seem novel, strange, and inexplicable to the philosophers and crowned heads of the world.

"It is for us, and those who shall come after us, to determine whether this grand experimental problem shall be worked out; not by quarrelling amongst ourselves; not by doing injustice to any; not by keeping out any particular class of States, but by each State remaining a separate and distinct political organism within itself – all bound together for general objects, and under a common Federal head; as it were, a wheel within a wheel. Then the number may be multiplied without limit; and then, indeed, may the nations of the earth look on in wonder at our career; and when they hear the noise of the wheels of our progress in achievement, in development, in expansion, in glory and renown, it may well appear to them not unlike the noise of great waters; the very voice of the Almighty —Vox populi! Vox Dei! (Great applause in the galleries and on the floor.)

"The Speaker. – If the applause in the galleries is repeated, the chair will order the galleries to be cleared.

"Many Members. – It was upon the floor.

"Mr. Stephens, of Georgia. One or two other matters only I wish to allude to. These relate only to amendments. I trust that every friend of this bill will unite and vote down every amendment. It needs no amendment. Oregon has nothing to do with Kansas, and should in no way be connected with her. To remand her back, as the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Marshall) proposes, to compel her to regulate suffrage as we may be disposed to dictate, would be but going back to the old attempt to impose conditions upon Missouri. There is no necessity for any census if we are satisfied, from all the evidence before us, that there are sixty thousand inhabitants there. Florida was admitted without a census. Texas was admitted, with two members on this floor without a census. So was California.

"To our friends upon this side of the house, let me say, if you cannot vote for the bill, assist us in having it voted upon as it is. Put on no riders. Give us no side-blows. Aid in keeping them off. Let the measure stand or fall upon its merits. If you cannot vote for the bill, vote against it just as it stands.

"I see my time is nearly out, and I cannot go into the discussion of other branches of the question; but may I not make an appeal to all sides of the house to come up to do their duty to-day? I have spoken of the rapid development of our country and its progress in all its material resources. Is it true that the intellectual and moral development of our country has not kept pace with its physical? Has our political body outgrown the heads and hearts of those who are to govern it? Is it so, that this thirty-fifth Congress is unequal to the great mission before it! Are we progressing in everything but mind and patriotism? Has destiny cast upon us a heavier load of duty than we are able to perform? Are we unequal to the task assigned us? I trust not. I know it is sometimes said in the country that Congress has degenerated. It is for us this day to show whether it is true or not. For myself, I do not believe it. It may be that the esprit de corps may have some influence on my judgment. Something may be pardoned to that. But still I feel that I address men of as much intelligence, reflection, talent, integrity, virtue and worth, as I have ever met in this hall; men not unfit to be the Representatives of this great, growing and prosperous Confederacy. The only real fitness for any public station is to be up to the requirements of the occasion, whatever that be. Let us, then, vindicate our characters as fit legislators to-day; and, with that dignity and decorum which have so signally marked our proceedings upon other great, exciting questions before, and which, whatever may be said of our debates, may be claimed as a distinguished honor for the present House of Representatives, let us do the work assigned us with that integrity of purpose which discharges duty regardless of consequences, and with a patriotism commensurate with the magnitude of the subject under all its responsibilities."

Mr. Stephens took very decided ground in favor of the Lecompton bill in 1857-8, and when that was likely to fail in favor of the English Compromise. He is also, while a Union man, very much in sympathy with the Southern Rights school of politicians, and has made two or three speeches in defence of filibusterism in the house. He has not entirely forgotten that he was once a Whig, for last winter he spoke in favor of, and supported heartily the French Spoliation bill. He is a very fair political opponent, doing everything in an open and frank manner, but a very shrewd tactician. He has rarely allowed himself to be led into excited, partisan or sectional speeches, and, therefore, has long been looked upon in Congress as an admirable party manager.