Biography
Alexander Hamilton Stephens was a Georgia politician who served as Vice President of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865. He is widely remembered for his March 1861 'Cornerstone Speech,' in which he declared that slavery and white supremacy formed the foundation of the new Confederate government. After the collapse of the Confederacy, Stephens was arrested for treason against the United States at his home in Crawfordville, Georgia, on May 11, 1865. He was transported north and imprisoned at Fort Warren, the granite fortress in Boston Harbor used to hold high-profile Confederate prisoners, where he was held for about five months. He was released in October 1865 after being pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, and was never brought to trial. He later returned to politics, serving again in the U.S. House of Representatives and, briefly, as Governor of Georgia.
