What would have happened if Thaddeus Stevens had failed on December 4, 1865?
November 2025
By Ross Hetrick
December 4, 1865 was a pivot point in American history when Thaddeus Stevens with the help of Edward McPherson of Gettysburg prevented ex-Confederates from taking over Congress. But what would have happened to the United States over the next 160 years if Stevens had failed on that critical day.
This important day in American history will be commemorated on Thursday, December 4, at 6 p.m. at Christ Lutheran Church, 30 Chambersburg Street, Gettysburg. The free program will include the showing of a video about December 4, 1865 and a one-man show by Ross Hetrick portraying Thaddeus Stevens.
While few people know what happened on that fateful day, the results have echoed through the decades. If ex-Confederates had not been barred from Congress there would be no 14th nor 15th Amendments and there would not have been a military occupation of the South, which lasted until 1877. But there were indications at the time that events were going to go in a dramatically different directions.
The biggest harbinger of disaster was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and his replacement by the vice president, Andrew Johnson, a southern Democrat. While Johnson had been against secession, he was ambivalent about slavery. Shortly after becoming president, Johnson started pardoning ex-Confederates wholesale and allowed the former Confederate states to hold congressional elections in which they elected former Confederate military and government officials.
Johnson and northern Democratic leaders wanted them to take their seat and take power away from the Republicans. These men did their best to force ex-Confederates into the 39th Congress, but they were thwarted by Stevens, who exercised his legendary parliamentary powers, and McPherson who stood his ground on not recognizing the southerners in the roll call. If Stevens and McPherson had failed, the United States would have returned to a condition very similar to the way it was before the Civil War.
White supremist governments would have retained control and there would have been nothing to prevent them from implementing laws called the Black codes, which returned African Americans to a state of servitude on a par with slavery and these laws may have continued for generations.
Blacks would have been barred from voting and without the military occupation of the south, white southerners could have slaughter African Americans who might dare to enter politics. Without the establishment of multiracial governments during Reconstruction, there would have been no public schools or other institutions in the South. And there would not have been the 14th and 15th Amendments, which were the bulwarks of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s.
In short, the South would have reverted back to having a small rich aristocratic elite in charge, more than third of its population in a new form of bondage and no movement toward social institutions that could have helped poor Blacks and whites.
Thaddeus Stevens knew that the United States was at a pivot point on December 4, 1865 and he was successful in turning the country in the right direction. And he would later comment on this as the Congress grappled with the 14th Amendment and Reconstruction.
"I believe there is entrusted to this Congress a high duty, no less important and no less fraught with the weal or woe of future ages than was entrusted to the august body that made the Declaration of Independence," Stevens said on January 31, 1866. "I believe now, if we omit to exercise that high duty, or abuse it, we shall be held to account by future generations of America, and by the whole civilized world that is in favor of freedom."
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/
