Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 56

 How a hero became a villain and back again

August 2025

By Ross Hetrick

A few months after Thaddeus Stevens died on August 11, 1868, members of the House of Representatives gathered to deliver eulogies about one of the greatest congressmen in U.S. history. The picture they drew was quite remarkable.

The congressmen told how Stevens had saved public education in Pennsylvania in the 1830s and how he had helped to revamped the financial structure of the nation to give it more economic muscle during the Civil War.  After the war, he orchestrated the parliamentary maneuver that prevented ex-Confederates from talking over Congress and then led the way in trying to reorganize the south into a more equal society during Reconstruction. 

His personal life was praised as one of unbounded generosity and a willingness to defend fugitive slaves for free. The congressmen predicted that statues would be erected to him across the nation and he would be remembered alongside Abraham Lincoln. "The labors and achievements of his life have rendered him immortal," one congressman said.

The praise went on for 84 pages and the book was published by the government and widely circulated. Copies of that book are now available at the Thaddeus Stevens museum in Gettysburg. But by the early 20th century, Stevens's name was a byword for vindictiveness and wrongheaded social movements. What happened?

What happened was the racist teaching of history professionals, a concerted propaganda effort to redeem the traitorous leaders of the Confederacy and an utter lack of support of Stevens's legacy by his family, friends and admirers.

By the early 1900s, academia was teaching that Reconstruction was a vengeful period with Republicans intent on punishing the south for causing the Civil War and that it was marked by corruption and misrule by a coalition of Black and white politicians. This view of the period was led by Professor Archibald Dunning of Columbia University, who headed what is known as the Dunning School of history.

These teachings in America's colleges and universities were bolstered on the cultural front by the Lost Cause mythology where the ex-Confederates and their descendants rewrote history saying the Civil War was not about slavery, but states rights, and they started a decades long effort of putting up statues and monuments to their Confederate heroes. They also vilified Stevens through books like Thomas Dixon's, The Clansman, and the 1915 silent movie that was made from it, Birth of a Nation.

And while all these things were happening, Stevens's house in Gettysburg was torn down and his Lancaster house was altered beyond recognition. Various efforts to erect statues in Stevens honor failed and the cemetery in Lancaster where he is buried was abandoned by its original owners and sporadically maintained by volunteers.

But things started turning around for Stevens's memory in the 1970s as historians like Kenneth Stampp and Eric Foner wrote books about how Reconstruction was a noble effort to create a biracial democracy that failed because of white southerner's violence. Stevens statues went up in Lancaster in 2008 and in Gettysburg in 2022. A Stevens museum opened in Gettysburg in 2024 and one is slated to open in Lancaster in April 2026.

But efforts to honor Stevens would be so much further along today if people had just heeded the words of those Congressional eulogies back in 1868. Particularly those of Rep. Ignatius L. Donnelly of Minnesota who said this about Stevens: 

"He never flattered the people; he never attempted to deceive them; he never 'paltered with them in a double sense;' he never courted and encouraged their errors. On the contrary, on all occasions he attacked their sins, he assailed their prejudices, he outraged all their bigotries; and when they turned upon him and attacked him, he marched straight forward, like Gulliver wading through the fleets of the Lilliputians, dragging his enemies after him into the great harbor of truth."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. The Society also participates in the Adams County Giving Spree, which will be held on November 6. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 55

 Thaddeus Stevens: parliamentary genius

July 2025

By Ross Hetrick

Much of Thaddeus Stevens's political power came from his unparalleled mastery of parliamentary procedure. Many times he was able to push through matters that wouldn't have gotten through but for his skillful use of the rules of the House of Representatives.

This was particularly true at the beginning of the Civil War when the Union needed a lot of money fast. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Stevens was in charge of getting appropriations through Congress. But standing in his way were northern Democrats, who sought to delay appropriations to assist their Confederate brethren. 

To prevent these congressmen from delaying much needed appropriations, Stevens came up with a novel solution. He would move to suspend the rules so that the House could go into the "committee of the whole," which would send a bill straight to the House floor, bypassing committee meetings. Stevens would also include a provision limiting debate to one hour or less.  This was attacked by southern sympathizers, but the Republican majority approved it and measures were quickly approved.

This technique worked so well that Stevens used it repeatedly, often cutting the time limit to five minutes, then to two and then to one. On one occasion the debate time was only half a minute.

While Stevens enjoyed the support of the Republican majority for this tactic, it sometimes rankled even fellow abolitionists. On one occasion Rep. Owen Lovejoy of  Illinois objected to the debate limitation. "Do you expect to drive this thing through with a tandem team [of horses]," Lovejoy asked Stevens one time, to which he snapped back that he didn't think he could because there are "too many mules in the way."

Stevens parliamentary skill as well as his wit were on full display on December 4, 1865 when he successfully prevented ex-Confederates from taking over Congress. On instructions from Stevens, House clerk Edward McPherson omitted the names of the southerners from the list of new congressmen, preventing them from taking seats in the House. This was done on the basis that the southern states had given up their rights as states by leaving the union.

Rep. James Brooks of New York, tried desperately to get the ex-Confederates in but Stevens successfully blunted his efforts. In a final plea, Brooks asked when the matter of allowing the southerners into Congress would be taken up, Stevens calmly replied: "At the appropriate time." It was greeted with peals of  laughter.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. The Society also participates in the Adams County Giving Spree, which will be held on November 6. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 54

 Enslavers' arrogance aided in the defeat of slavery

June 2025

By Ross Hetrick

The death of slavery was helped along by the arrogance of the enslavers. 

During the 1850s, the southern enslavers were definitely in the driver's seat as far as the national government was concerned. The decade started off with the Compromise of 1850 that included the Fugitive Slave Act which made it so easy to kidnap northern African-Americans that it sparked a reverse underground railroad. This was followed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed the spread of slavery into new northern states if enslavers could get enough votes. This sparked a mini civil war in Kansas known as Bleeding Kansas. Then to top this all off, the Supreme Court issued the Dred Scott Decision in 1857 declared that Blacks, free or enslaved, were not US citizens. In reaction, President James Buchanan stopped issuing passports to free African-Americans.

Of course there was resistance to these measures. African-Americans formed self-protection groups to fight kidnappers, settlers in Kansas took up arms against slavers who wanted that territory to be a slave state, John Brown launched his raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. And the Republican party was founded in 1854 on the principle of stopping the expansion of slavery to new states with the hope that it would die off in the states where it existed. 

But the new party knew that there was no possibility of getting rid of slavery where it existed because it was protected by the Constitution and there was no chance of an amendment prohibiting it as long as the southern states stayed in the union. 

But as strong as the enslavers were, they sabotaged their position by their own arrogance. They split the Democratic party between three candidates, all in favor of slavery, and Abraham Lincoln was able to win with only 40 percent of the vote. In fact, Lincoln had no southern votes because he was not allowed on the ballot in those states.

But instead of licking their wounds and waiting four years to try to regain power, the enslavers arrogantly seceded from the union. This allowed Lincoln to ban slavery in the Confederacy as part of his war powers and Congress to outlaw slavery all together in a legislature devoid of southern representation. 

And even after the war started, many people, including Lincoln, were still trying to bring the union together without getting rid of slavery. But not Thaddeus Stevens. He saw as the chance to destroy the heinous institution.

"What an opportunity is presented to this republic to vindicate her consistency and become immortal," he said in January 1862. "The occasion is forced upon us, and the invitation presented to strike the chains from four million of human beings, and create them MEN; to extinguish slavery on this whole continent; to wipe out, so far as we are concerned, the most hateful and infernal blot that has ever disgraced the escutcheon of man; to write a page in history of the world whose brightness shall eclipse all the records of heroes and of sages."

The enslavers' arrogance was increased by massive self delusion. They would constantly proclaim that slaves liked being slaves. This fantasy was demolished by Stevens in a Congressional speech on June 10, 1850.

"Gentlemen on this floor and the Senate, have repeatedly, during this discussion, asserted that slavery was a moral, political and personal blessing; that the slave was free from care, contented, happy, fat and sleek," Stevens said. "Comparisons have been instituted between slaves and laboring freemen, much to the advantage of the condition of slavery. Instances are cited where the slave, after having tried freedom, had voluntarily returned to resume his yoke."

"Well, if this be so, let us give all a chance to enjoy this blessing. Let the slaves, who choose, go free; and the free, who choose, become slaves. If these gentlemen believe there is a word of truth in what they preach, the slaveholder need be under no apprehension that he will ever lack for bondsmen. Their slaves would remain and many freemen would seek admission in this happy condition. Let them be active in propagating their principles. We will not complain if they establish societies in the South for that purpose -- abolition societies to abolish freedom. Nor will we rob the mails to search for incendiary publications in favor of slavery, even if they contain seductive pictures of those implements of happiness -- handcuffs, iron yokes and cat-o-nine-tails." 

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

 

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 53

 Juneteenth celebration returns to Gettysburg

May 2025

By Ross Hetrick

With the help of many people and organizations, Juneteenth will again be celebrated in Gettysburg with two days of events marking the end of slavery in the United States.

The festivities will kick off on Saturday, June 21, at 11:45 am on the grounds of the United Lutheran Seminary behind 15 Seminary Ridge. Gettysburg Mayor Rita Frealing will give a welcoming address followed from noon to 3 pm by a series of presentations highlighting local Black historical figures and Thaddeus Stevens. Attendees will also be able to check out booths of various social groups and food trucks. Christine Campbell, representing Gettysburg's first Black-owned bed and breakfast, will give closing remarks for this segment of the events. A walking tour will then leave the area to see various Black historic sites in Gettysburg, which should conclude by 4 pm.

Then at 7 pm the celebration shifts to Christ Lutheran Church at 30 Chambersburg Street in Gettysburg where there will be a presentation about the Emancipation Proclamation featuring music and  songs along with dramatic vignettes about Thaddeus Stevens and Mag Palm, a pre-Civil War Black heroine, and a poem and song by Black abolitionist Sojourner Truth. 

On Sunday, June 22, the spotlight will be turned on Black entrepreneurship, culture and community at the Majestic Theater at 25 Carlisle Street in Gettysburg. From 3 to 5 pm there will be food trucks in front of the theater and Black owned businesses will be featured inside. There will be performances from 5 to 7:30 pm and the evening will culminate with a free soul stirring jazz concert by Antoinette Montegue. 

Final touches are being made to the schedule and updates can be found at this link:   https://destinationgettysburg.com/juneteenth-gettysburg-celebration/

Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021 to mark the day on June 19, 1865 when  enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were told about the Emancipation Proclamation, which was issued by President Abraham Lincoln two years earlier. It banned slavery in the Confederacy and the union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 assured that Lincoln's order would be followed throughout the south.

Juneteenth was celebrated in Gettysburg in 2022 and 2023 but not in 2024. It has now returned with the help of the following people and organizations that have made generous contributions: Mediation Services of Adams County, Charles Sawicki, The Pub, Lisa Grim, Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice, Dobbin House/Jacqueline White, Gettysburg Pride Inc., Chad Alan Carr, Janet Riggs, Martin Zimman, Ronda Climons, Thaddeus Stevens Society, Rebecca Wood, Gail & Peter Hull, Adams County Community Foundation, and Star Grant of Adams County Arts Council.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 52

 Thaddeus Stevens and the cow chopping incident

April 2025

By Ross Hetrick

Nearly everybody is familiar with the legend of the young George Washington chopping down a cherry tree and then confessing to his father because he "cannot tell a lie." A similar event happened to the young Thaddeus Stevens, but it involved chopping a cow. 

Stevens was dealt a bad hand as a child in the rugged land of Vermont. His father was a ne'er-do-well who abandoned his wife and four sons when Thaddeus was twelve and his mother, Sarah, had to support the family by doing domestic work. But she was a great believer in education and she moved her family from Danville to Peacham, VT to be closer to the local academy. 

Young Thaddeus thrived there and went on to the prestigious college of Dartmouth in New Hampshire in 1811. In his second year in college, Stevens transferred to Burlington College, now the University of Vermont. It was there that he had his chopping incident. College officials had urged local farmers not to let their cattle graze on the unenclosed campus because of the droppings they left. But one farmer, who Stevens called a "stubborn fellow," ignored the college's request and let his cow munch the grass and leave messy surprises for unsuspecting students.

Stevens and a friend decided to take matters into their own hands and they took an ax from a fellow student's woodshop and dispatched the offending bovine to its heavenly reward. They then returned the bloody ax to the woodshop. The surprised farmer complained to the college president and a search ensued and the ax was found in the innocent student's woodshop. 

Stevens could have stayed quiet and let the unfortunate student take the blame and be expelled. But his conscience wouldn't let him. He and his friend went to the farmer and confessed and Stevens promised to pay double the cost of the cow when he got the money if the farmer didn't tell the college. Taking mercy on them, the farmer told the college that passing soldiers had actually killed the cow and had left it behind, not having time to butcher it. Charges were dropped against the falsely accused student.

Having avoided expulsion, Stevens went back to Dartmouth for his final year in college and graduated in August 1814. After Stevens became a successful lawyer in Gettysburg, he sent the farm the promised payment along with a gold watch and chain. In return, the farmer sent Stevens a barrel of cider. 

The incident showed the basic integrity that Stevens would display for the rest of his life, even though he was known to take shortcuts to reach a desired goal. George Washington would have been proud.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 51

 Thaddeus Stevens museum expands, exhibit about Confederate kidnapping planned

March 2025

By Ross Hetrick

The Thaddeus Stevens Museum is expanding into the storefront next door at 52 Chambersburg Street and the grand opening is on April 5 at 5 p.m. All are invited.

The new space, called the Annex, will feature an expanded research area, tourist information, more exhibits about Stevens and the Thaddeus Stevens Society, and Civil War art for sale. Already in the display window of 52 Chambersburg Street is a nearly 200-year-old cast iron stove made at Stevens's Maria Furnace in Fairfield, PA, which he owned from 1828 to 1837. 

The Thaddeus Stevens Society's extensive collection of books and documents about Stevens, the Civil War and Reconstruction will be housed at the Annex so that researchers will have a suitable place to work. 

There are also plans for an exhibit in the Annex about one of the most heinous acts of the Confederate forces during the Gettysburg campaign -- the kidnapping of hundreds of Black civilians who were taken into slavery. This aspect of the Confederate invasion has been largely ignored in most recounts of the battle. It is estimated that several hundred Black Pennsylvanians were hunted down during the weeks Confederates roamed the counties around Gettysburg.

What happened to them is largely unknown. But one victim, Jane Lyles, who had lived at Stevens's Caledonia Furnace, reached out to Stevens after the war to help locate three of her children kidnapped with her and then separated. Stevens attempted to help her, but in the end she disappeared into the disorder that pervaded the South after the war. Lyles's struggle is told in the February 6 edition of the Smithsonian Magazine in an article by historian Robert Colby.

In a congressional speech on September 17, 1863, Stevens recounted the kidnappings and said a farmer had told him that he had encountered four wagon loads of women and children being carted away and asked the soldier in charge why they were taking children, even babies. "Oh, they will bring something," the soldier replied.

"Thieves, robbers, traitors, kidnappers," Stevens exclaimed in the speech. "Brethren of the South? God forbid that I should thus treat them. They are no more kindred of mine. I would as soon acknowledge fellowship with the sooty demons whose business and delight it is to torture the damned!! Let Copperheads [northern Confederate sympathizers] embrace them. They will find together an appropriate place in the great day of Accounts."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which is dedicated to promoting Stevens's important legacy. The Society operates the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 46 Chambersburg St. in Gettysburg, PA. More information about the Great Commoner can be found at the society's website: https://www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com/

The Great Commoner, Spring 2025 No. 50, www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com

 Thaddeus Stevens Society events on April 4 & 5

The Thaddeus Stevens Society has a full slate of events on Friday and Saturday, April 4 and 5, to mark the 233rd birthday of the Great Commoner. On April 4 at 4:30 p.m. the annual graveside ceremony will be held at Stevens's grave at the Shreiner-Concord cemetery at Mulberry and Chestnut Streets in Lancaster, PA, which will be followed at 6 p.m. by the Stevens Day dinner and membership meeting at the the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology at 750 E. King Street in Lancaster. The dinner is free to members.

Before the graveside ceremony, there will be a tour at 2 p.m. for Society members and supporters of the future site of the Stevens/Smith museum at Queen and Vine Streets. Please come to the convention center entrance on Vine Street.

Then on Saturday April 5 there will be the grand opening of the Annex of the Thaddeus Stevens Museum at 52 Chambersburg Street at 5 p.m. This will be followed by a presentation at Christ Lutheran Church, next door to the museum, at 6:30 p.m. about Thaddeus Stevens, the Emancipation Proclamation and the church itself.

The events on April 4th and 5th are as follows:

Friday, April 4:

2:00 p.m. -- Tour of future site of Stevens/Smith museum at Queen and Vine Streets.

4:30 p.m. -- Graveside ceremony marking Thaddeus Stevens's birthday at Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at Chestnut and Mulberry in Lancaster, PA.

6:00 p.m. -- Stevens Day Dinner and Society membership meeting at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology at 750 E. King Street, Lancaster, PA

Saturday, April 5:

5:00 p.m. -- Grand opening of the Thaddeus Stevens Museum Annex at 52 Chambersburg St., Gettysburg, PA.

6:30 p.m. -- Program at Christ Lutheran Church, 30 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg, PA, about the church, the Emancipation Proclamation, and Thaddeus Stevens

If you plan on attending any of these events, please send a reply email to info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com

Thaddeus Stevens museum expands

The Thaddeus Stevens Museum is expanding into 52 Chambersburg Street, next door to the current facility. Called the Annex, the storefront will be used for a larger research area, more exhibits, tourist information, and a place for the sale of Civil War art. The grand opening will be on Saturday, April 5, at 5 p.m. 

Exterior of Annex at 52 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg, PA

In front window is stove made at a Stevens's iron mill

Inside the Annex is a giant picture of Thaddeus Stevens

Sneak peek of Stevens/Smith museum 

The Lancaster Historical Society held a "Sneak Peek" at the the future Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy in Lancaster, PA. The event was attended by hundreds of people who paid $200 a piece to support the project. While the structure of the museum is completed, the installation of exhibits is more than a year off. The $24 million project still has to raise $5 million. Thaddeus Stevens Society members and supporters will get a chance to see the interior of the museum on Friday, April 4, from 2 to 4 p.m. Participants are asked to gather at the Vine Street entrance to the Lancaster Convention Center.

Hundreds came to the "Sneak Peek" of the future Stevens/Smith museum

The event also had a display of Stevens's wig and grandfather clock.

Thad mentioned in New York Times Book Review

In  the New York Times Book Review of February 23, 2025 about a book by Bennett Parten telling of General William Sherman's effort to distribute land to freed slaves, the last paragraph refers to Thaddeus Stevens's failed effort to redistribute land after the Civil War. It read as follows:

Once back in session, Congress "dithered," or so Parten charges, but that seems not entirely correct. Abolitionists like the Pennsylvania representative Thaddeus Stevens had already been hatching a radical plan to redistribute the wealth of the South: Divvy up the confiscated property and give it to the families of formerly enslaved people and thus effectively overturn the propertied class system that so long had ruled the region. Land ownership meant political power. Stevens reminded the House that four million people had been freed, but "if we leave them to the legislation of their late masters, we had better have left them in bondage. If we fail in this great duty now, when we have the power," he warned, "we shall deserve and receive the execration of history and of all future ages." And so they have.

Surprise at the Thaddeus Stevens Museum

You never know who is going to come into the Thaddeus Stevens museum in Gettysburg. Jackson Rickert visited with his father on March 1. Turns out Jackson had dressed up as Thaddeus Stevens for Halloween and had a picture to share. In turn he took a picture with Society President Ross Hetrick, who was portraying Thad.

Jackson Rickert dressed up as Thad during Halloween.

Ross Hetrick as Thad with Jackson Rickert

Leave a legacy for Thad

Support Thaddeus Stevens's legacy by leaving a legacy of your own. If you wish to include the Thaddeus Stevens Society in your will, please let us know by calling 717-347-8159 or emailing info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com. Thank you.