Thaddeus Stevens

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Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792 – August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and one of the Republican Party's leaders during the 1860s.

Stevens, a vocal critic of slavery and bigotry against African-Americans, was determined to regain their rights during Reconstruction, in reaction to US President Andrew Johnson.

During the American Civil War, he was a leader, focusing on destroying the Confederacy, financing the war with new taxes and borrowing, undermining slave ownership, ending slavery, and ensuring equal rights for the Freedmen. Stevens was born in rural Vermont, in poverty, and with a club foot, leaving him with a permanent limp.

He came from Pennsylvania as a youth and became a well-respected attorney in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

He was involved in municipal affairs and then in politics.

He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he became a vocal advocate for free public education.

Early life and education

Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont, on April 4, 1792. He was the second of four children, all boys, and was named in honor of Polish general Thaddeus Kociuszko, who died in the American Revolution. His parents, who immigrated from Massachusetts around 1786, were Baptists. Thaddeus was born with a club foot, which was seen by others as a punishment from God for a mystery parental sin. Both feet were present in his older brother's birth. Joshua Stevens, the boys' father, was a fisherman and cobbler who had trouble finding a life in Vermont. Joshua dropped the children and his mother Sarah (née Morrill) after fathering two more sons (born without a disability). The circumstances surrounding his departure and his subsequent fate are uncertain; he may have been killed at Battle of Oswego during the War of 1812.

Sarah Stevens struggled to make a living off the farm despite increasing support for her sons. She was determined that her sons improve themselves, and in 1807, the family relocated to Peacham, Vermont, where she enrolled young Thaddeus in the Caledonia Grammar School (often called the Peacham Academy). He was particularly taunted because of his disability. Later accounts describe him as "wilful, headstrong" with "an overriding desire to obtain an education."

After graduation, he enrolled at the University of Vermont but had to suspend his studies due to the federal government's appropriation of campus buildings during the War of 1812. Stevens then enrolled in Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, in the sophomore class. Despite a stellar academic career, he was not elected to Phi Beta Kappa; it was undoubtedly a scary experience for him.

Stevens graduated from Dartmouth in 1814 and was chosen as a speaker at the commencement ceremony. He then returned to Peacham and briefly taught there. In John Mattocks' office, Stevens also started reading legislation. Stevens accepted the academy faculty in early 1815 after a friend, Samuel Merrill, moved to York, Pennsylvania, to become the preceptor of the York Academy. He moved to York to teach and continued to study law in David Cossett's office.

Personal life

Stevens never married, though there were rumors about his twentieth-year friendship (1848–1868) with his widowed housekeeper Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813–1884). She was a light-skinned African-American; her husband Jacob and at least one of her sons were considerably darker than she was.

It's uncertain if the Stevens-Smith relationship was romantic. The Democratic media assumed so, and when Mrs. Smith returned to Washington in 1859, she took over their household, which did nothing to prevent their insinuations. Stevens' one-time letter from Stevens to her, she is addressed as Mrs. Lydia Smith. Stevens maintained that his nieces and nephews referred to her as Mrs. Smith, deference toward an African-American servant who was almost unheard of at the time. They do so in surviving letters, most requesting Stevens to see if she will visit him again next time he visits.

Brodie referred to an 1868 letter in which Stevens compares himself to Richard M. Johnson, vice president under Martin Van Buren, who lived openly with a line of African-American slave mistresses, as proof that their relationship was sexual. Yet Johnson was re-elected during the 1836 race, a point that Stevens explores.

Smith, his sister Simon Stevens, nephew Thaddeus Stevens Jr., two African-American nuns, and several others were at his bedside when Stevens died. Smith was able to choose either a lump sum of $5,000 or a $500 annual allowance under Stevens' will; she could also have any furniture in his house. She bought Stevens' house, where she had lived for many years, as a result of her inheritance. She preferred to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, not near Stevens, but she left money for his grave's upkeep.

After their parents died in Vermont, Stevens took custody of his two young nephews, Thaddeus (often called "Thaddeus Jr.") and Alanson Joshua Stevens. Alanson was sent by Stevens' Caledonia Forge; Thaddeus Jr. was suspended from Dartmouth College but later graduated and was accepted into his uncle's law practice. During the Civil War, Alanson was promoted to be the commanding captain of a Pennsylvania Volunteer field artillery unit, but he was killed in combat at Chickamauga. After Alanson's death, his uncle used his influence to get Thaddeus Jr. to become Lancaster's provost marshal.

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