He served as the 22nd Governor of Tennessee from 1881 to 1883, one of just three Republicans to hold this position from the end of Reconstruction to the latter half of the 20th century.

Hawkins was also a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court in the late 1860s, and was briefly the U.S. consul to Havana, Cuba, in 1868.

Hawkins attended McLemoresville Academy and Bethel College, and was taught farming and blacksmithing by his father.

[1] While many anti-secession Tennessee Whigs switched their support to the Confederacy after the Battle of Fort Sumter, Hawkins remained staunchly pro-Union for the duration of the Civil War.

[6] He spent the next few months scouting West Tennessee to gather information for the state's military authorities.

[7] His term ended, however, with the enactment of the new Tennessee State Constitution in 1870, and he returned to his law practice in Huntingdon.

[5] Throughout the 1870s, Tennessee struggled to control the debt it had accumulated over the previous decades to pay for internal improvements and railroad construction.

The Panic of 1873 brought a decrease in property tax revenues, and the state defaulted on its bond payments in 1875.

[5] By 1880, the split over the debt issue had left the Democratic Party seriously divided, and Marks declined to run for reelection.

He remained active in the Methodist Church, and stumped for unsuccessful Republican gubernatorial candidate Henry Clay Evans in 1894.

Alvin's mother, Mary ("Polly") Graham Ralston, was a first cousin of California governor John Neely Johnson.