Publisher's Synopsis
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: Selections from the Writings and Speeches of the Confederacy's First Vice President, by award-winning Southern historian Colonel Lochlainn Seabrook, proves it!
This well-researched work, a companion to Colonel 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 our country'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 honorable and noble figures, as well as one of America's most extraordinary and interesting statesmen.
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 traditional South and the progressive 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 Conservative 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 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 already becoming 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 affectionately known to his relatives, friends and constituents, is now powerless. Thanks to Colonel Seabrook, the reputation, honor, and memory of Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens has finally been fully redeemed. Available in paperback and hardcover.
Colonel Seabrook's other works include: Abraham Lincoln Was a Liberal, Jefferson Davis Was a Conservative; Lincoln's War: The Real Cause, the Real Winner, the Real Loser; All We Ask is to be Let Alone: The Southern Secession Fact Book; Confederate Monuments: Why Every American Should Honor Confederate Soldiers and Their Memorials; The Unholy Crusade: Lincoln's Legacy of Destruction in the American South; The Great Yankee Coverup: What the North Doesn't Want You to Know About Lincoln's War; Confederacy 101: Amazing Facts You Never Knew About America's Oldest Political Tradition; Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery is Wrong, Ask a Southerner!
