WINNER OF THE JEFFERSON DAVIS AWARD Rising from humble origins in the middle Georgia cotton belt, Alexander H. Stephens (1812–1883) became one of the South’s leading politicians and lawyers. Thomas E. Schott has written the first scholarly biography that analyzes the interplay between the public and private Stephens and between state and national politics during his contradictory career. Stephens was a celebrated Whig, turned Democrat, who served as congressman from 1843 to 1859 and an antisecessionist who became vice-president of the Confederacy. Ignored by the Davis administration once in office, he eventually opposed most of its wartime policies. Schott argues that Stephens’ devotion to the southern cause was as genuine as his devotion to civil liberties and states’ rights. After the war, he became an elder statesman for Georgia, serving nine more years as a congress-man and the last five months of his life as governor.

Salesman's dummy, containing prospectus (p. [1]-[39], 1st group), press notices about the work (p. 1-15), and blanks for names of subscribers; sample bindings mounted inside front and back covers. LC copy has been used as scrapbook with t.p. and first few pages of text obscured by mounted newspaper clippings.

"This book traces the curious history of the Cornerstone Speech. Alexander H. Stephens's defense of the new Confederacy, delivered on March 21, 1861, the Cornerstone Speech was an uninhibited overture to a new nation founded on white supremacy and slavery, and an instant sensation. While the speech is widely cited, no full-length treatment of the work and its legacy exists - and it is poorly understood. Hébert examines how Stephens initially considered it, then how, with the help of others, he reinterpreted it to shore up major tenets of Lost Cause ideology after the Confederacy was defeated on the battlefield. The book also shows how this reactionary interpretation would inform Neo-Confederate ideas that abide to the present day in American culture"--

A biography of Jefferson Davis: statesman, Mexican war hero, and President of the Confederate States of America.

The untold story of the founding father’s likely Jewish birth and upbringing—and its revolutionary consequences for understanding him and the nation he fought to create In The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton, Andrew Porwancher debunks a string of myths about the origins of this founding father to arrive at a startling conclusion: Hamilton, in all likelihood, was born and raised Jewish. For more than two centuries, his youth in the Caribbean has remained shrouded in mystery. Hamilton himself wanted it that way, and most biographers have simply assumed he had a Christian boyhood. With a detective’s persistence and a historian’s rigor, Porwancher upends that assumption and revolutionizes our understanding of an American icon. This radical reassessment of Hamilton’s religious upbringing gives us a fresh perspective on both his adult years and the country he helped forge. Although he didn’t identify as a Jew in America, Hamilton cultivated a relationship with the Jewish community that made him unique among the founders. As a lawyer, he advocated for Jewish citizens in court. As a financial visionary, he invigorated sectors of the economy that gave Jews their greatest opportunities. As an alumnus of Columbia, he made his alma mater more welcoming to Jewish people. And his efforts are all the more striking given the pernicious antisemitism of the era. In a new nation torn between democratic promises and discriminatory practices, Hamilton fought for a republic in which Jew and Gentile would stand as equals. By setting Hamilton in the context of his Jewish world for the first time, this fascinating book challenges us to rethink the life and legend of America's most enigmatic founder.

Was Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens really a "racist" Dixiecrat who believed that slavery was the "cornerstone" of the Confederacy, as pro-North writers assert? Was he actually guilty of "treason" against the U.S., an "anarchist" who should have been hanged for leading the secession of the Southern states? Of course not. And "The Quotable Alexander H. Stephens," by award-winning author and Southern historian Lochlainn Seabrook, proves it! This well-researched work, a companion to Seabrook's "The Alexander H. Stephens Reader," provides nearly 700 footnoted entries that reveal the authentic man, one completely opposite of the negative image of Stephens fabricated by enemies of the South. Known as one of America's most kindly and charitable individuals, he was a true friend of the black man, as well as a pro-Unionist who at first campaigned against Southern secession. Also a brilliant thinker, spell-binding orator, and prodigious author, he was, in fact, one of history's most extraordinary, interesting, honorable, and noble figures. Follow Stephens in his own words, as he takes us through the development of the U.S. after the American Revolution, and into the growing bitter sectionalism between the South and the North in the 1840s and 1850s. Get a you-are-there view of the entire "Civil War," from the disastrous election of big government Liberal Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, to the tragic fall of the Confederacy and Stephens' illegal imprisonment in the Spring of 1865. Follow the frail but feisty Georgia governor-who turned down offers to run for both U.S. president and C.S. president-from so-called "Reconstruction" and the rebuilding of the South (which he helped direct), through the postwar administrations of Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur. Along the way, not only do we learn the true cause behind Lincoln's War, but Stephens also lays out the facts concerning Southern slavery and his "Cornerstone" speech, while forcefully defending the constitutional right of secession. Follow the lifelong bachelor-politician (who served in the U.S. government, in one capacity or another, from President Andrew Jackson to President Chester A. Arthur, a span of forty-seven years) as he discloses his everyday thoughts and personal opinions on everything from the weather and dogs to self-government and states' rights, in this profusely illustrated one-of-a-kind book that is sure to become a standard in Southern literature. With the publication of "The Quotable Alexander H. Stephens," the anti-South movement's vicious slander against "little Aleck," as he was lovingly known to his relatives, friends and constituents, is now powerless. Thanks to Mr. Seabrook, Alexander H. Stephens has finally been fully redeemed. Lochlainn Seabrook, a Stephens family descendant and a recipient of the prestigious Jefferson Davis Historical Gold Medal, is a Civil War scholar, an unreconstructed Southern historian, and the author of over thirty popular books for all ages. The sixth great-grandson of the Earl of Oxford and a seventh-generation Kentuckian of Appalachian heritage, he is a cousin of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Known as the "American Robert Graves" after his celebrated English cousin, Seabrook has a thirty-year background in the War for Southern Independence and Confederate studies and biography. He is a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the National Grange, and lives with his wife and family in historic Middle Tennessee, the heart of the Confederacy. Seabrook's other titles include: "Everything You Were Taught About the Civil War is Wrong, Ask A Southerner!"; "Honest Jeff and Dishonest Abe: A Southern Children's Guide to the Civil War"; and "A Rebel Born: A Defense of Nathan Bedford Forrest."

Our One Common Country explores the most critical meeting of the Civil War. Given short shrift or overlooked by many historians, the Hampton Roads Conference of 1865 was a crucial turning point in the War between the States. In this well written and highly documented book, James B. Conroy describes in fascinating detail what happened when leaders from both sides came together to try to end the hostilities. The meeting was meant to end the fighting on peaceful terms. It failed, however, and the war dragged on for two more bloody, destructive months. Through meticulous research of both primary and secondary sources, Conroy tells the story of the doomed peace negotiations through the characters who lived it. With a fresh and immediate perspective, Our One Common Country offers a thrilling and eye-opening look into the inability of our nation’s leaders to find a peaceful solution. The failure of the Hamptons Roads Conference shaped the course of American history and the future of America’s wars to come.