A Georgian, Alexander Hamilton Stephens [1812-1883] was Vice President of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. He was a U.S. congressman from Georgia before the war and its governor from 1882 until his death in 1883. A Constitutional View is a sophisticated and well-argued defense of the doctrine of state sovereignty and the right of states to secede. The book "was a sensation in its day, evoking attacks by Northern and Southern champions of causes upon which it impinged.": Dictionary of American Biography IX:574.