Alexander Stephens (1812-1883) was a United States Congressman who became the Vice President of the Confederacy. Born in Georgia, Stephens spent his youth studying to become a lawyer. He went on to serve in the Georgia legislature during the 1830s and the United States House of Representatives throughout the 1840s and ’50s. In his tenure as a Representative, he supported numerous measures to expand slavery into the newly acquired western territories. Upon the formation of the Confederacy, Stephens was elected its Vice President. Just after, Stephens delivered his “Cornerstone Speech,” in which he insists that racial inequality and slavery were the Confederacy’s foundational tenants. After the war, he was arrested for treason. In 1866, the Georgia legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate, which refused to accept him. Nonetheless, he was successfully voted into the House as a Representative for Georgia in 1873 and was elected Governor of Georgia in 1882.