The Great Commoner, Fall 2026, No. 53 www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com

 Membership meeting on October 4 in Fairfield, PA

The Thaddeus Stevens Society will have a membership meeting on October 4 at 1 pm at the community park at 4020 Bullfrog Road in Fairfield, PA. The meeting will be a potluck picnic. Hot dogs, hamburgers, soda and chips will be served and attendees are encouraged to bring side dishes, though it is not required. After the business meeting, we will carpool to see local sites associated with Thaddeus Stevens's Tapeworm Railroad and Maria Iron Furnace. If you plan to attend, please email info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com or call 717-347-8159.

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 68

 The comeback of Thaddeus Stevens in the 1850s

August 2026

By Ross Hetrick

When Thaddeus Stevens lost his congressional seat representing Lancaster, PA in 1853, he thought he would never see Congress again. "It is more than probable that hereafter I shall never meet any member here or elsewhere," Stevens told colleagues in March 1853. "I desire to part with no unfriendly feelings towards any of you," he said.

Was he ever wrong. He would come back in 1858 as a Republican and he would become the most powerful member of the House of Representatives after the Civil War. But even though he did not hold political office during that interim period, he was very involved in politics, laying the ground work for his comeback.

Stevens had moved from Gettysburg to Lancaster in 1842 to make more money as a lawyer in a larger city to support his money-losing Caledonia iron works near Chambersburg. In 1848 he ran for Congress as a Whig and won. During his first two years, the biggest issue was the Compromise of 1850. Besides bringing California into the Union as a free state and prohibiting the slave trade in Washington, D.C. the measure included the infamous Fugitive Slave Act, which required citizens anywhere in the U.S. to assist slaveholders in capturing fugitive slaves. Of course, Stevens was vehemently against it.

"The distinguished senator from Kentucky [Henry Clay] wishes further to make it the duty of all bystanders to aid in the capture of fugitives; to join the chase and run down the prey," Stevens said in Congress. "This is asking more than my constituents will ever grant. . . . No law that tyranny can pass will ever induce them to join the hue and cry after the trembling wretch who has escaped from unjust bondage." Stevens words proved to be prophetic. 

On September 11, 1851 a slaveowner in pursuit of fugitive slaves was meet by a self protection group of African Americans near Christiana, a town near Lancaster. The group blew a horn and neighbors came to help them, including four white men. The slaveowner tried to recruit the white men who turned out to be Quakers and they refused, The confrontation ended with the slaveowner being killed and the fugitive slaves escaping. The four Quakers along with other participants were put on trial for treason in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. Stevens was a member of the defense team that got them all off. 

Stevens's opposition to the Compromise of 1850 and his participation in the Christiana Resistance case was too much for the Silver Grays, conservative Whigs, who controlled the party in Lancaster. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Stevens bowed out of the Whig nomination contest. But then Stevens took one of most controversial actions of his political career, he joined the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic American party, also known as the Know-Nothings. 

This would seem completely against Stevens's principles of tolerance and religious freedom. But it made sense during this time of political party turmoil. The Whigs were being torn apart over the slavery issue and the Republican party was yet to be born. Of course, the Democrat party, the slavery party, was not an option for Stevens.  He also had a history of pursuing his own agenda and ignoring the general goals of whatever party he was in.

With the support of the Know-Nothings. Stevens was able to get Anthony E. Roberts elected to Congress in 1854, defeating the Democratic and Whig candidates. Then in 1855 he joined the year-old Republican party, which more closely aligned with Stevens's decades long crusade against slavery. He then was elected to the House of Representatives in 1858 and became a leader in the effort to legislatively destroy slavery. 

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which 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. 67

 Thaddeus Stevens: financial wheeler dealer

July 2026

By Ross Hetrick

Besides his four decades-long crusade against slavery, Thaddeus Stevens was known as a wheeler dealer when it came to government financial matters. This was on full display when Stevens helped to rescue the Second Bank of the United States in 1836 and make it a state bank. The story was the last chapter in a decades long saga of the young country trying and failing to establish a stable banking system. 

It started with the creation of the First Bank of the United States in 1791 by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. The bank was where federal taxes were deposited and loans made to the government and private interests. The bank was opposed by people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison of Virginia, who would later become presidents. They contended that the bank was unconstitutional and primarily benefited northern business at the expense of southern agricultural interests. 

But despite this opposition, the bank continued to operate until 1811 when Congress decided not to renew its charter. Then in 1816 Congress thought better of it's earlier decision and took another whack at central banking with the creation of the Second Bank of the United States. Then in the 1830s anti-bank forces lead by President Andrew Jackson succeeded in blocking the rechartering of the bank and Jackson put federal funds into "pet" state banks. 

This is when Stevens stepped in.  In January 1836 he introduced a bill with the unwieldy name of, "An Act to Repeal the State Tax on Real and Personal Property and to Continue and Extend the Improvements of the State by Railroads and Canals, and to Charter a State Bank to be Called the United States Bank,"

In exchange for giving the bank a new life, the rechristened United States Bank would give the state $2 million, ($72 million in today's dollars) and also loan it another $6 million ($216 million in current dollars) if the state needed it at very favorable interest rates. This staved off a possible state default and it also benefited two of Stevens's favorite causes: public education and the construction of a railroad from Gettysburg to western Maryland, later known as the Tapeworm Railroad. 

However, the windfall was short-lived. By 1837, the national economy tanked, partly due to scuttling the bank's role in national finances. Coupled with malfeasance on the part of the it's president Nicholas Biddle, the bank spiraled into insolvency by 1841. Stevens's Tapeworm Railroad was abandoned in 1838 after he lost political power as a result of the Buckshot War where Democrats took political power in Harrisburg by force after a disputed election.

Yet the arrangement did have have the benefits of reducing personal property tax, creating public jobs and averting state bankruptcy, according to Bradley R. Hoch in his book, Thaddeus Stevens in Gettysburg: The Making of an Abolitionist.

It would not be the last time Stevens dabbled in government finances. He would go on to play a pivotal role in 1863 in the creation of the first federal paper currency, called "Greenbacks" and the creation of the national banking system, which endured until the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which 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. 66

 Thaddeus Stevens and the Underground Railroad

June 2026

By Ross Hetrick

Much of Thaddeus Stevens's life is well documented, but not so with his involvement with the Underground Railroad. Helping fugitive slaves was against the law and secrecy was of the utmost importance. But over the last century and a half, more information has been found that reveals Stevens's participation. 

It has been generally accepted that Stevens's Caledonia iron mill near Chambersburg, PA which he owned from 1837 to 1868, was a stop of the Underground Railroad since it had large African-American workforce and freedom seekers could blend in. He was also involved as an attorney in many fugitive slave cases while he lived in Gettysburg and Lancaster.

An 1847 letter from Stevens to a colleague tells about how he had a "spy on the spies" and would warn freedom seekers of slave catchers lurking in the area. The double agent was later identified as Edward H. Rauch, who told a reporter that he was part of a secret organization that Stevens formed to thwart slave catchers in the Lancaster area. Rauch said he would act as if he was in league with the slave catchers and then relay the information to Stevens.

In 2003 an archaeological dig behind the location of Stevens's Lancaster house, found a possible passageway from the next door building to a cistern that might have been a hiding place for fugitive slaves. However, this assertion has been challenged. 

In 2009 a manuscript by Oliver Cromwell Gilbert was discovered detailing his escape with other freedom seekers from slavery in Maryland and how Stevens assisted him. After crossing the Susquehanna River they were directed to Stevens's house in Lancaster. There Stevens gave them a note and instructed them to go several more miles to a stop on the Underground Railroad. 

As a result of these findings and other research done by Randy Harris, an Underground Railroad expert in Lancaster, Stevens's grave and house in Lancaster and his Caledonia iron mill have been included in the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. 

While Stevens participation in the Underground Railroad was kept secret during his lifetime, his contempt for laws that facilitated the catching of fugitive slaves was on full display while he was a congressman. He particularly opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which denied alleged runaways a jury trial and the right to testify. Stevens particularly attacked a provision requiring bystanders to assist slaveowners in capturing freedom seekers.

"The slaveholder may pursue his slave among them [Pennsylvanians] with his foreign myrmidons unmolested, except by their frowning scorn," Stevens said in congressional debates, "But no law that tyranny can pass will ever induce them to join the hue and cry after the trembling wretch who has escaped from unjust bondage," 

This proved to be the case a year later near Christiana, PA where a slaveowner was meet with armed resistance to capturing an escaped slave and tried to recruit four Quakers who refused. The slaveowner was killed in the ensuing melee and the Quakers and others were put on trial for treason. Stevens was part of the defense team that won an acquittal for all involved. But it cost Stevens's his congressional seat since the Whig party would not nominate him again.

But Stevens returned to congress in 1858 as a Republican to see the legislative destruction of slavery during the Civil War.

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which 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. 65

 A book for all Thaddeus Stevens admirers

May 2026

By Ross Hetrick

The Mad Dreams of Thaddeus Stevens by Michael J. Barton, is a book that every Thaddeus Stevens admirer should own. It is not a biography, it is a  tribute, telling why Thaddeus Stevens was a visionary who changed the United States.

The book originated with an epic poem written by Barton, a Michigan attorney who devoted his retirement to studying the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, the so-called Reconstruction Amendments. "In that type of study, all roads lead to Thaddeus Stevens," he writes in his book.

The Thaddeus Stevens Society reprinted the poem in our spring 2025 newsletter which can be found at this link: Barton Poem 

This led to the Society asking Barton to put together a print-on-demand book that would include his poem and others written in the 19th century.  He threw himself enthusiastically into the venture and added several chapters about how other authors celebrated Stevens and described schools, museums and statues that honor the Great Commoner. The book can be found on the Barnes & Noble web page by typing in "The Mad Dreams of Thaddeus Stevens." The book is also available in paperback at the same site. 

The book starts with an essay about how Stevens was ahead of his time. "He does not seem to be a product of his time," Barton writes. This is followed by chapters on Stevens lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, D.C., his inspirational grave in Lancaster, PA. the eulogies read in Congress, as well as poems written by Civil War era authors, 

Then there is a gem of a letter by Frederick Douglass, written in 1869 in response to an inquiry from Edward McPherson, Steven's longtime protege. And even though he never met Stevens, Douglass had great admiration for him. 

"My impressions of the man derived from close observation of his manner and bearing on the floor of the house, whether in debate or in repose, are very vivid and will never be forgotten," Douglass wrote, adding that Stevens's "great qualities of his mind and heart --  which made him more potent in Congress and in the country than even the President and Cabinet combined."

Barton then describes Stevens's involvement in the Christiana Resistance case of 1851 and even how a Stevens quote helped win the famous 1954 Supreme Court case that outlawed school segregation.  There are also essays on what W.E.B. Du Bois and Carl Sandburg said about him.

The book ends with a revised version of Barton's 45-page poem that draws on American history as well as Greek mythology. And it ends with the Stevens's inspirational epitaph on his grave in Lancaster:

"I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated during a long life: Equality of Man before his creator."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which 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. 64

 The savior of public education in Pennsylvania

April 2026

By Ross Hetrick

Of the many achievements of Thaddeus Stevens, the one he looked back on most fondly was his saving of public education in Pennsylvania in 1835.

Education in Pennsylvania in the early 1830s was truly a nightmare. Schooling was pretty much restricted to those that could pay for it. There were provisions that the state would pay if a family could prove that they were paupers. But who wanted to be a pariah in their community? So between the people who thought education was unnecessary and those too proud to accept charity, less than a third of the state's school age children received an education, according to the book Thaddeus Stevens in Gettysburg: The Making of an Abolitionist, by Bradley R. Hoch.

Then on April 1, 1834 Pennsylvania was one of the first states to pass legislation that provide schools for every child regardless of their wealth. Of course, this also meant higher  taxes and there was an immediate backlash. Many churches were also wary of secular education. This resulted with many people elected in the fall pledged to repeal the new law.

On March 19, 1835 the Pennsylvania Senate voted to repeal the public school act and then the bill moved over to the state House of Representatives. Stevens, who represented Gettysburg, got up on April 11 and gave one the most effective speeches of his legislative career.

With both members of the House and Senate listening, Stevens said public education was necessary so that every voter could "direct wisely the Legislatures, the ambassadors, and the Executives of the Nation." It would also benefit the children of parents who saw their offspring as mere "instruments of gain." 

"This law will be of vast advantage to the offspring of such misers," Stevens said. "If they are compelled to pay their taxes to support schools, their very meanness will induce them to send their children to them to get the worth of their money."

He also appealed to the other legislators' desire for fame. "If you wish to acquire popularity, how often have you been admonished to build not your monuments of brass or marble, but make them of ever-living mind."

The speech was a hit. It seemingly swayed the House to pass a strong public education act, which was then approved by the Senate that had earlier repealed public education. It was a great triumph for Stevens and he was accorded the title of "Father of Public Education in Pennsylvania," even though he was actually the savior since he did not introduce the 1834 bill.

This led to many schools in Pennsylvania being named after Stevens, including ones in Chambersburg, Lancaster, New Castle, Williamsport, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Allentown. Even schools in Washington, D.C. and Brooklyn, NY bear his name. 

Ironically, there has never been a Gettysburg school named after Stevens even though he represented the area at the time of his famous speech. A 2014 request by the Thaddeus Stevens Society to name the Gettysburg Middle School after Stevens was turned down by the board of the Gettysburg Area School District.  

And even though Stevens would go on to achieve great things in the following decades, he  considered that speech one of his greatest victories and close to death in 1868 he said: "I shall feel myself abundantly rewarded for all my efforts in behalf of universal education if a single child, educated by the Commonwealth, shall drop a tear of gratitude on my grave."

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which 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. 63

 April and May are Thaddeus Stevens months

March 2026

By Ross Hetrick

In the coming weeks there will be two events celebrating the legacy of Thaddeus Stevens to be followed by the grand opening of the new museum about Stevens in Lancaster, PA on May 1 and 2. 

The celebrations will start with a birthday party for Stevens on Saturday, April 4, at noon at the Stevens museum annex at 52 Chambersburg Street in Gettysburg, PA. Stevens was born in 1792 in Danville, Vermont. The Thaddeus Stevens Society will observe the occasion with a potluck picnic in the yard behind the museum annex. The Society will provide hot dogs, hamburgers, birthday cake and drinks. People are invited to bring a side dish or dessert to share. If you plan to attend this free event, please call, text or email the Society at 717-347-8159 or info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com

The second event will be on Friday, April 10, at 4:30 pm at the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut Streets in Lancaster, PA. It will be the annual ceremony at Stevens's grave. Stevens picked this cemetery because it was the only graveyard in Lancaster at the time that was open to both Blacks and whites and he referred to this fact in his epitaph: "I repose in the quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life: Equality of man before his creator." 

The ceremony will be followed at 6 pm by the Stevens Day dinner at the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology at 750 E. King Street in Lancaster. The dinner is free to members of the Thaddeus Stevens Society.

The grand finale of the Stevens celebrations will be the opening of the Thaddeus Stevens and Lydia Hamilton Smith Center for History and Democracy at 13 E. Vine Street, Lancaster, PA. Twenty-six years in the making, the $24 million museum will have a ribbon cutting at  9 am on May 1. Then at 12:30 pm the Society will have a special awards ceremony at the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery at the corner of Mulberry and Chestnut Streets. This will be followed at 1:30 pm of a tour of the nearby Stevens School Residences. The celebration continues Friday evening with a ticketed gala in the new and expanded Commons on Vine at the Lancaster County Convention Center, located directly adjacent to the Stevens & Smith

Then on Saturday, May 2, there will be a free block party from noon to 6 pm on Vine Street beside the museum celebrating the opening. The event will feature music, art, history-themed vendors, food and beverage trucks, family-friendly activities, and much more. Museum admission will again be free on Saturday, though advance registration for timed-entry tickets is strongly encouraged. More information about these events is available at this link: https://stevensandsmithcenter.org/events/

Ross Hetrick is president of the Thaddeus Stevens Society, which 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/