 |
History and Government—Congressional Biographies—GeorgiaAlexander Hamilton STEPHENS
(1812-1883)
STEPHENS, Alexander
Hamilton, (great-great-uncle of Robert Grier Stephens, Jr.),
a Representative from Georgia; born near Crawfordville, Taliaferro
County, Ga., on February 11, 1812; attended private and public
schools; was graduated from the University of Georgia at Athens in
1832; taught school eighteen months; studied law; was admitted to
the bar in Crawfordville in 1834; member of the State house of
representatives 1836-1841; served in the State senate in 1842;
elected as a Whig to the Twenty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy
caused by the resignation of Mark A. Cooper; reelected as a Whig to
the Twenty-ninth through Thirty-first Congresses, as a Unionist to
the Thirty-second Congress, as a Whig to the Thirty-third Congress
and as a Democrat to the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congresses
and served from October 2, 1843, to March 3, 1859; chairman,
Committee on Territories (Thirty-fifth Congress); was not a
candidate for renomination in 1858; member of the secession
convention of Georgia in 1861, which elected him to the Confederate
Congress, and was chosen by that Congress as Vice President of the
provisional government; elected Vice President of the Confederacy;
one of the commissioners representing the Confederacy at the
Hampton Roads conference in February 1865; after the Civil War was
imprisoned in Fort Warren, Boston Harbor, for five months, until
October 1865; elected to the United States Senate in 1866 by the
first legislature convened under the new State constitution, but
did not present his credentials, as the State had not been
readmitted to representation; elected as a Democrat to the
Forty-third Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the death of
Ambrose R. Wright; reelected to the Forty-fourth and to the three
succeeding Congresses and served from December 1, 1873, until his
resignation November 4, 1882; chairman, Committee on Coinage,
Weights, and Measures (Forty-fourth through Forty-sixth
Congresses); elected Governor of Georgia in 1882 and served until
his death in Atlanta, Ga., March 4, 1883; interment in a vault in
Oakland Cemetery; reinterment on his estate, “Liberty
Hall,” near Crawfordville, Ga.
Bibliography
Schott, Thomas E. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia: A
Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1988.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
Related Links
|
24 X 7
Private Tutor
|
24 x 7 Tutor Availability |
|
|
Unlimited Online Tutoring |
|
|
1-on-1 Tutoring |
|
