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In a New York Times opinion piece, Professor of History Robert Bonner discusses the March 16, 1864, speech by Vice President Alexander H. Stephens before the Georgia legislature. The speech, says Bonner, was recognized by Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, as “an act of utter betrayal.”

A three-hour rant against the Davis administration and its policies, including the military draft and martial law, “Stephens’ rhetorical broadside spread quickly across the wartime South and became one of the most important political developments in the Civil War’s third lingering winter,” Bonner writes.

Read the full opinion piece, published 3/27/14 by The New York Times.