A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States; It’s Causes, Character, Conduct and Results. Presented in a Series of Colloquies at Liberty Hall.

STEPHENS, Alexander H.

$850.00

Item Number: 132870

Philadelphia: National Publishing Company, 1868.

First edition of the “most elaborate—and best—argument for the constitutional validity of the doctrine of state sovereignty and the right of secession” (Howes), featuring 16 full-page steel engraved portraits, several facsimiles and a map of Manassas. Octavo, two volumes bound in full cloth with morocco spine labels lettered in gilt, illustrated with 16 full-page steel engraved portraits including two frontispieces, three facsimiles of letters between the author and Abraham Lincoln, index, publisher’s advertisements. Eicher 174. Howes S938. In near fine condition.

The former vice-president of the Confederate States, whose notorious "cornerstone speech" set forth white supremacy as the Confederacy's "great truth," Alexander Stephens after the war "urged southerners to accept the end of slavery, be conciliatory toward the North, and grant the freedmen the legal and civil rights of citizenship. But, a few months later, he insisted that the Georgia Assembly reject the Fourteenth Amendment… Then, he turned his energies to writing A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States, a two-volume apologia for the southern separatist movement. The book claimed that 'the conflict in principle arose from different and opposing ideas as to the nature of what is known as the General Government,' rival principles that he saw as 'Federation' and 'Centralism.' Slavery was merely 'the question' on which this dispute ultimately turned. The first of many constitutional explanations of the Civil War and the source of the erroneous term 'War between the States,' the book sold quite well" (ANB).