Personal recollections and travels at home and abroad Volume 1
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The Kenderdines Of America: Being A Genealogical And Historical Account Of The Descendants Of Thomas Kenderdine (1901)
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Speech of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens, of Pennsylvania, in the House of Representatives, on the reference of the President's annual message. Made in Committee of the Whole, February 20, 1850
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Speech of Hon. T. Stevens, in reply to the attack on Gen. Hunter's letter.
(Originally published in 1862. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Originally published in 1862. 16 pages. This volume is produced from digital images from the Cornell University Library Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection
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Free-Masonry Unmasked, or Minutes of the Trial of a Suit in the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County, Wherein Thaddeus Stevens, Esq. Was Plaintiff and Jacob Lefever, Defendant (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Free-Masonry Unmasked, or Minutes of the Tri...)
Excerpt from Free-Masonry Unmasked, or Minutes of the Trial of a Suit in the Court of Common Pleas of Adams County, Wherein Thaddeus Stevens, Esq. Was Plaintiff and Jacob Lefever, Defendant
F OB many years after the startlingdisclosures of the principles of masonry, made b Captain morgan, the L1: Rov convention, bernard and other seceding Masons,the Fraternity, from their most respectable Kings and Great Grand High Priests down to their most servile lacquies, eitherby direct allegations. Or significant insinuations, pro nounced those disclosures false and fictitious. So monstrous was the Masonic combina tion; so degrading its Ceremonies; and so iniquitous and blasphemous its Oaths, Obliga tions and Penalties, that it was difficult for honest, honorable and ingenuous men to be lieve that they had been submitted to and propagated by their worthy and respecta ble neighbors, whom they knew to be Masons. A large portion of community rejected those disclosures as fictions, invented and propagated from interested and ambitious motives. Many,misled by the assertions of Masons, disbelieved the abduction and mur der of Morgan. A large portion of intelligent, but somewhat haughty citizens, trea ted the subject with disdain, and of toolittle importance for serious investigation. The testimony relied on originated at too great a' distance, and much of it wanted the sanc tion of Judicial authority.
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Thaddeus Stevens was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania and one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s.
Background
Thaddeus was born on April 4, 1792 in Danville, Vermont, United States, of a family which had migrated from Massachusetts a few years earlier. His father, Joshua Stevens, an unthrifty shoemaker, died or disappeared at an undetermined date, leaving the mother, Sally (Morrill) Stevens, and four small sons in dire poverty. She was fortunately a woman of fine ideals and great industry, and made many sacrifices to educate Thaddeus, who as the youngest child, and lame and sickly from birth, required special care.
The family soon removed to Peacham, Vermont, to gain the advantages of the academy which had been established there in 1795. This village, just above the junction of the Connecticut and Passumpsic rivers in north central Vermont, was still part of a semi-frontier community, and the boy grew up in a ruggedly democratic society.
Education
Completing his course at Peacham Academy, Stevens entered Dartmouth College as a sophomore in 1811, and graduated in 1814. However, he spent one term and part of another at the University of Vermont. There are early evidences of his headstrong nature: at Peacham Academy he joined other students in presenting a tragedy in the evening, both the dramatic entertainment and the hour being infractions of the rule, and at the University of Vermont he is said to have killed a cow. At the latter institution he also wrote a drama on "The Fall of Helvetic Liberty" and helped enact it.
The instruction at Dartmouth and Vermont was limited and thorough, emphasizing Greek, Latin, higher mathematics, and ethics. From his classical training Stevens undoubtedly drew much of the clarity, exactness, and force which later characterized his public speaking.
Career
Stevens had determined to practise law, and began reading it in Vermont. On taking his degree he obtained a post as instructor in an academy at York, Pennsylvania, and continued his law studies under David Casset, leader of the local bar. Apparently to evade a time requirement in Pennsylvania, he took his bar examinations at Bel Air, Maryland, passing with ease when he proved that in addition to a little law he knew how to order Madeira for his examiners and to lose money at cards to them. He then removed to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1816 to practise.
For several years a struggling lawyer of narrow income, Stevens used his leisure to do much profitable reading in history and belleslettres. But an important case in which he defended a man accused of murder on the then unusual plea of insanity gave him a large fee, said to have been $1500, and a reputation.
Thereafter from 1821 to 1830 he appeared in almost every important case at the county bar and won almost all of his numerous appeals to the state supreme court.
After practising law for ten years in Gettysburg, Stevens also entered the iron business by becoming in 1826 a partner in James D. Paxton & Company, which at once built Maria Furnace in Hamilton-ban Township, Adams County. The company, which became Stevens & Paxton in 1828, first tried to manufacture stoves and other light castings, but the metal was "coldshort" and the product frequently too brittle to have a value. Stevens and Paxton therefore bought property near Chambersburg, where they built Caledonia Forge (probably named after Stevens' native county in Vermont), and mixed pig iron from Maria Furnace with other ores.
In 1837 they also built Caledonia Furnace, and finding ample supplies of superior ore near it, the next year gave up their first furnace entirely. They confined themselves chiefly to the sale of blooms. The Caledonia establishment was never very profitable even in the earlier years. When it met the competition of more effective and economical iron works, Stevens kept it up primarily because he did not wish to deprive the surrounding community of its principal means of livelihood. From his manufacturing enterprise sprang Stevens' interest in protective tariff. It was natural for a man who felt with his burning intensity on public questions to push into politics.
For some years he introduced or supported much legislation striking at Masonic influences, and in 1835 was chairman of a committee which made abortive attempts to investigate the evils of Free-Masonry. But his range of interests was wide. He was a warm advocate of the act of 1834 extending the free school system of Philadelphia over the whole state. The next year, when in a reaction against the taxes that were required an effort was made to repeal this law, he sprang into statewide fame by a brilliant defense of free education, - a defense "which produced an effect second to no speech ever uttered in an American legislative assembly".
His denunciation of class-hostility toward free public schools, his excoriation of the repeal as "an act for branding and marking the poor", and his panegyric of a democratic system of instruction, completely won the hostile House. What was more, it caused the Senate to reverse its position. Stevens also labored for larger appropriations for colleges, including Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College) at Gettysburg. He argued in behalf of the right of petition, appealed for a constitutional limit on the state debt, and defended the protective tariff and the United States Bank.
In 1838 a disputed election in Philadelphia County brought on at Harrisburg the "Buckshot War, " with the Whig and Anti-Masonic members of the House endeavoring to organize in opposition to the Democrats. Stevens was the chief leader in this attempt, showing the fierce fighting spirit and uncompromising disposition which marked him through life. At one time he escaped from a mob in the state capitol by leaping from a window. His faction was defeated, and the Democrats declared his seat vacated, but he was at once reelected.
In 1836-37 he offered a resolution in favor of abolishing slavery and the slave-trade in the District of Columbia. In the state constitutional convention of 1837 he displayed great bitterness in debate, opposing everything that smacked of privilege or class distinctions, and refusing to sign the constitution finally adopted because it limited suffrage to white citizens. At his retirement from the legislature the Harrisburg Pennsylvania Telegraph pronounced him "a giant among pigmy opponents", and every one recognized him as one of the strongest men in the state.
His decision to quit politics was only temporary, for as the contest over slavery grew heated he was irresistibly drawn toward the arena. Pique over his failure to gain a place in the cabinet of Harrison, whom he had supported in 1836 and 1840, may have played a part in his retirement. His business had not prospered, and he had debts variously estimated at from $90, 000 to $217, 000 to pay off.
Removing in 1842 to Lancaster, he at once gained a place at its bar worth from $12, 000 to $15, 000 a year. As he repaired his fortunes he turned toward public life and in 1848 was elected on the Whig ticket to the Thirty-first Congress. Here he immediately took a leading place among the little band of free-soilers, surpassing such men as Joshua R. Giddings and G. W. Julian in fieriness of temper as in general parliamentary versatility. He was willing to make no compromise whatever with slavery in the territories, and predicted that if ringed about by "a cordon of freemen, " all slave states would within twenty-five years pass laws "for the gradual and final extinction of slavery".
Southern members expressed horror at his gross language, which they declared too indecent for print, and at his reckless and incendiary sentiments. Reelected in 1850, he renewed his assaults upon slavery and his warnings to the South against secession. He also spoke for increased tariffs.
For within a year Douglas had prepared his Kansas-Nebraska scheme, and the moment was ripe for a leader of Stevens' unsurpassed powers of agitation and denunciation. In the formation of the Republican party in Pennsylvania, Stevens played a vigorous part. He helped organize Lancaster County in 1855, and in 1856 attended the National Convention at Philadelphia as a supporter of Justice McLean. His impassioned appeals at this gathering led Elihu B. Washburne to say that he had "never heard a man speak with more feeling or in more persuasive accents".
In 1858 he was reelected to Congress and, with fire unabated at the age of sixty-eight, entered the last debates before the Civil War. His harshness of speech was as great as ever. An early colloquy with Crawford of Georgia almost provoked a riot on the floor. He also renewed his pleas for a protective tariff.
In 1860 he again was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and though he was constrained to support Cameron and preferred McLean, finally voted for Lincoln. Returning to Congress, he opposed any concessions to the Southerners as "the coward breath of servility and meanness"; he warned the South to secede at its peril, saying that if it tried to break up the Union "our next United States will contain no foot of ground on which a slave can tread, no breath of air which a slave can breathe".
He was made chairman of the ways and means committee, which gave him wide authority over all revenue bills and most other congressional measures dealing with the prosecution of the war; while as Blaine states, in everything he was "the natural leader, who assumed his place by common consent".
Upon nearly all aspects of the war he had stern and positive views, and his ideas of policy diverged sharply from Lincoln's. In the field of finance he fortunately gave the administration loyal support. He was prompt in carrying through the House all necessary legislation authorizing Secretary Chase to float loans. He and his committee acted with expedition and nerve in devising new taxes and making them effective.
He pressed the income tax against urban objection, the direct tax on real estate against rural objection. The internal revenue act of 1862 showed especial ingenuity in reaching almost every source of revenue, and for this he as well as Justin S. Morrill, chairman of the sub-committee on taxation, deserves credit.
On the conduct of the war Stevens took a harsh and aggressive position. He was one of the two House members who in 1861 voted against the Crittenden resolution declaring that the war was not fought for conquest or subjugation, or to interfere with the established institutions of the South.
He went so far by 1864 as to speak of the necessity of seeing the "rebels" exterminated, and more than once spoke of desolating the section, erasing state lines, and colonizing it anew. It was charged that his shrill demands for vengeance after 1863 were prompted in part by the destruction of his iron works near Chambersburg in Lee's invasion of that year.
Though he supported Lincoln for reelection in 1864 it was probably with secret hostility, and his sorrow over the President's assassination was not keen. Temporarily he hoped that Johnson would take the radical road.
With Sumner, he at once prepared to give battle to Johnson for the purpose of reducing the South to a "territorial condition, " making it choose between negro suffrage and reduced representation, imposing other harsh conditions, and fixing Republican supremacy - for which he appreciated economic as well as political arguments. Like Sumner, he also set about promoting schism in Johnson's cabinet.
On April 30, 1866, the joint committee reported the Fourteenth Amendment, which with a few changes Congress adopted, and a bill declaring that when the amendment became part of the Constitution any state lately in insurrection which ratified it and adopted a constitution and laws in conformity with its terms should be admitted to representation in Congress. But this bill never passed.
It did not go as far as Stevens wished and on the last day of the session he tried to amend it to require full negro suffrage. Johnson opposed the congressional plan, the South with his apparent approval refused to accept the Fourteenth Amendment, and the whole issue went before the people in the congressional election of 1866. Economic factors strengthened Stevens' hands, for large elements feared loss of tariff advantages, railway grants, free homesteads, and gold bond-redemptions, with all of which the Republican party was identified.
A sweeping victory that fall gave Stevens the whip-hand over Johnson and the South. The first use which he made of his success was to impose military reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment upon the South. He had expected it to reject the Fourteenth Amendment and thus give him an opening, and he was prepared to make the most of a defiance which he had deliberately inspired and encouraged.
His new measure, introduced February 6, 1867, and passed in March, provided for temporary military rule while the states were remade in the South on the basis of negro suffrage and the exclusion of leading ex-Confederates.
He declared during the summer of 1867 that he would willingly help impeach Johnson but that he did not believe the measure would succeed. In December he did vote for an impeachment resolution which failed by nearly two to one. When Johnson summarily removed Stanton as secretary of war Stevens saw his chance, and the very next day reported an impeachment resolution based on the President's supposed disregard of the Tenure of Office Act.
He was made a member of the committee to draft articles of impeachment, and also one of the managers to conduct the case before the Senate. But his health had now hopelessly failed, and he took little part in the trial itself. Deeply disappointed by the President's acquittal, he sank so rapidly that when Congress recessed he could not be taken back to Lancaster, but died in Washington.
(Originally published in 1862. 16 pages. This volume is pr...)
Politics
He was a member of a number of political parties during his life: Anti-Masonic (1828–1838), Whig (1838–1851), Know Nothing (1851–1855), Republican (1855–1868).
In 1830 he was described as "a firm and undeviating Federalist" and "a violent opponent of General Jackson".
Views
He was early trained to hard work and an independent outlook, and though a chance visit to Boston at the age of twelve gave him an ambition some day "to become rich", he imbibed a strong feeling for the poor and an intense dislike of aristocracy and of caste lines.
Since his county adjoined Maryland, Stevens saw much of the slavery system and of runaway negroes, and his instinctive New England dislike of slavery grew into a fierce hatred. He defended numerous fugitive slaves without fee, and displayed great skill in gaining their freedom.
He denounced slavery as "a curse, a shame, and a crime"; he compared it to the horrors of Dante's Inferno. He taunted men of the lower South as slave-drivers, and Virginians for devoting their lives "to selecting and grooming the most lusty sires and the most fruitful wenches to supply the slave barracoons".
Personality
He had rare parliamentary talents. Well-read, with a quick and lucid mind, of indomitable courage, a master of language and past master of invective, gifted with a sardonic humor and nimble wit, he was almost invincible on the floor. His private life was far from saintly, for gambling was but one of several habitual vices. But his leonine spirit, his terrible earnestness, his gay resourcefulness, and his fine intellectual equipment always inspired respect. Had tolerance and magnanimity been added to his character, he might have been a brilliant instead of sinister figure in American history.
Connections
He had never married, and only his nephew and colored housekeeper were at his bedside.