The Quotable Alexander H. Stephens

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."