"The slaves never got nothing. Alexander Stephens, the Vice-President of
the Confederacy, divided his plantation up and gave it to his darkies
when he died. I knew him and his brother too. Alexander[HW: *] never did
walk. He was deformed. Big headed rascal, but he had sense! His brother
was named Leonard[HW: *]. He was a lawyer. He really killed himself. He
was one of these die-hard Southerners. He did something and they
arrested him. It made him so mad. He'd bought him a horse. He got on
that horse and fell off and broke his neck. That was right after the
War. They kept garrisons in all the counties right after the War.
"I was in Hancock County when I knew Vice-President Stephens. I don't
know where he was born but he had a plantation in Toliver [HW:
Taliaferro] County. Most of the Stephenses was lawyers. He was a lawyer
too, and he would come to Sparta. That is where I was living then. There
was more politics and political doings in Sparta than there was in
Crawfordville where he lived. He lived between Montgomery and Richmond
during the War, for the capital of the Confederacy was at Montgomery one
time and Richmond another.
"After the War, the Republicans nominated Alexander Stephens for
governor. The Democrats knew they couldn't beat him, so they turned
'round and nominated him too. He had a lot of sense. He said, 'What we
lost on the battle-field, we will get it back at the ballot box.' Seeb
Reese, United States Senator from Hancock County, said, 'If you let the
nigger have four or five dollars in his pocket he never will steal.'