Alexander H. Stephens Statue, National Statuary Hall, Washington, D.C.

This marble statue depicts Alexander Hamilton Stephens (1812-1883), the former Vice President of the Confederate States of America. Located in the National Statuary Hall within the Congress Building in Washington, D.C., it was carved by artist Gutzon Borglum and gifted to Congress by the state of Georgia in 1927.

Prior to becoming Vice President of the C.S.A., Stephens served in the U.S. House of Representatives for twenty-five years, as well as the Governor of Georgia for four months before his death in 1883. He and President Jefferson Davis had their differences on many points, such as the need to secede from the Union and the issues regarded as states’ rights violations. As vice president he did his best to keep some measure of peace between the Confederacy and the United States. On March 31^st, 1861, he delivered the infamous Cornerstone Speech in which he defended slavery as the ‘natural condition’ of the black race, and highlighted that black inferiority to whites was foundational to the formation of the Confederacy. His statue is one of six Confederate leaders remaining in the National Statuary Hall, while two have been removed to other locations.

In 2017, descendants of Stephens wrote to then-Governor Nathan Deal requesting the removal of his statue based on the rhetoric included in the Cornerstone speech. Three years later, on June 17^th, 2020, partly in response to the protests for racial justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd, the Georgia Assembly filed resolution H.R. 1551, calling to replace the Stephens sculpture with one honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. Though it was filed too late to have a chance of passing before the end of the year, the hopes of its sponsors was to get the wheels turning in early 2021. A few months later in February of 2021, plans moved ahead in the Assembly to replace Stephens’ statue with one honoring the late Georgia representative and civil rights leader John Lewis. This proposal enjoyed widespread popularity throughout the state including Governor Brian Kemp, the lieutentant governor and speaker of the house.

On June 29^th, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on H.R. 3005, a bill calling for the removal of Confederate statuary from the Capitol complex, passing the House with bipartisan support, 285-120. However, the bill was not considered in the U.S. Senate despite efforts by representatives reaching out to Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer to have it expedited. Nevertheless, continued efforts to remove the Confederate statues continued in 2023, spearheaded by the Democrat members of Congress. On February 28th, 2023, California Congresswoman Barbare Lee, Mississippi Congressman Bernie Thompson, and New Jersey Senator Corey Booker reintroduced a similar measure calling for the removal of Confederate monuments in the Capitol Complex. The bicameral bill The Confederate Monument Removal Act seeks to: "To remove all statues of individuals who voluntarily served the Confederate States of America from display in the United States Capitol." If passed, the bill will remove Confederate statues in the first 120 days of the approval of the bill to their States of origin, while those statues that are not claimed by a State will fall under the care of the Architect of the Capitol, which will store the statues in a non-public location. The bill has not yet been voted on.

“Alexander Stephens.” American Battlefield Trust. Accessed November 17, 2021. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/alexander-stephens

“Alexander Hamilton Stephens Statue.” Architect of the Capitol. Accessed November 17, 2021. https://www.aoc.gov/explore-capitol-campus/art/alexander-hamilton-stephens

“Hoyer, Lee, Clyburn, House Democrats Send Letter Calling for Senate Action on Legislation to Remove Hate.” Congressman Steny Hoyer, September 24, 2021. https://hoyer.house.gov/

Mitchell, Tia. “House Votes to Move Georgia Statue, Other Confederate Symbols from U.S. Capitol.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 29, 2021. https://www.ajc.com/

Reimann, Nicholas. “Plan for John Lewis Statue to Replace Confederate Vice President in U.S. Capitol Moves Forward.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, February 4, 2021. https://www.forbes.com/

Salzer, James. “Resolution Filed to Replace Confederate VP with MLK in US Capitol.” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 17, 2020. https://www.ajc.com/