Thaddeus Stevens

Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868), American politician, leading member of the United States House of Representatives during the American Civil War and the Reconstruction period.

Stevens was born on April 4, 1792, in Danville, Vermont, and educated at Dartmouth College. In 1816 he began the practice of law in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and subsequently served in the Pennsylvania legislature. He was a U.S. congressman from 1849 to 1853 and again from 1859 until his death. Initially a member of the Whig party, he became a Republican in 1855.

On his reentry into Congress in 1859, Stevens quickly established himself as an extremist in his attitude toward the slaveholders. He was one of the first to urge President Abraham Lincoln to decree the emancipation of slaves in territory conquered by Union arms and to enlist them in the Union army. After the war he favored strict federal control of the South in order to democratize it before its reintegration into the Union. He advocated the full enfranchisement of the liberated slaves and sponsored the legislation that later, as the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, affirmed the political and civil rights of black Americans. During the continuing struggle over Reconstruction policy, Stevens played the leading role in the impeachment of Lincoln's successor, President Andrew Johnson. He died in Washington, D.C., on August 11, 1868.