Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 23

 Thaddeus Stevens and the Gettysburg Address

November 2022

By Ross Hetrick

Asked why he and other prominent politicians were not going to attend Lincoln's speech in Gettysburg, Thaddeus Stevens said, "Let the dead bury the dead."

Stevens quoted this enigmatic Biblical passage because he thought  Lincoln was politically dead at the time and would not be re-elected president. But near the end of 1864, battlefield victories came in fast and furiously and Lincoln won a second term, only to be cut down a month into his new term.

It's too bad that Stevens didn't go to Lincoln's immortal address. Perhaps he could have shown Lincoln around Gettysburg, where he had lived for 26 years, and some of the fame of the event would have rubbed off on him. Despite his legendary ability of persuasion, Thad could have used a good PR consultant some times. 

One thing Lincoln's speech established for all time is the truth that "brevity is the soul of wit." Edward Everett's two-hour speech at the same event is long forgotten and only brought up as an example of wordiness.

In an age when marathon speeches were common, Stevens's orations were distinguished for being short, eloquent and to the point. While none of his speeches were to become as well know as the Gettysburg Address, Stevens poetically summed up his political principles on June 13, 1866 just before the passage of the 14th Amendment in Congress. The measure, which he introduced, promised to fulfill the long delayed promise of all people are created equal and extend the protection of the Bill of Rights to the state level. And even though it was his creation, he was dissatisfied with the way it had been changed, particularly on voting rights.

Stevens expressed his dismay and hope this way: “In my youth, in my manhood, in my old age, I had fondly dreamed that when any fortunate chance should have broken up for a while the foundation of our institutions, and released us from obligations the most tyrannical that ever man imposed in the name of freedom, that the intelligent pure and just men of this Republic, true to their professions and their consciences, would have so remodeled all our institutions as to have rid them from every vestige of human oppression, of the inequity of rights, of the recognized degradation of the poor, and the superior caste of the rich. In short, that no distinction would be tolerated in this purified Republic but what arose from merit and conduct. This bright dream has vanished ‘like the baseless fabric of a vision.’ I find that we shall be obliged to be content with patching up the worst portions of the ancient edifice, and leaving it, in many of its parts, to be swept through by the tempests, the frosts, and the storms of despotism.

   "Do you inquire why, holding these views and possessing some will of my own, I accept so imperfect a proposition? I answer, because I live among men and not among angels; among men as intelligent, as determined, and as independent as myself, who not agreeing with me, do not choose to yield their opinions to mine. Mutual concession, therefore, is our only resort, or mutual hostilities.”

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

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles, No. 22

 Thaddeus Stevens Society dedicated to collecting and preserving Stevens artifacts

October 2022

By Ross Hetrick

One of the most important missions of the Thaddeus Stevens Society is to collect and preserve items related to Stevens and his fight for freedom and equality.

In its 22 years of existence, the Society has amassed a nice collection of letters, period newspapers, postcards, books, stoves made at iron mills owned by Stevens and even music  to honor Stevens. And you can see these items at a meeting of the Thaddeus Stevens Society on Sunday, November 6, at 1 p.m. in Gettysburg. There will also be a walking tour of Stevens sights in Gettysburg. If you'd like to attend this meeting, which includes a potluck lunch, please email info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com

While books about famous people are important, we also yearn to visit places where these celebrated individuals lived and breathed. Millions of people a year flock to places like Mount Vernon, Monticello, Wheatland and even Graceland. But despite Stevens's oversized importance to American history, there were no places for admirers to visit for more than a hundred years.

This started to change in the 1990s when the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster established its archives room in the college's  library, which featured a variety of Stevens artifacts, including his bed, his clubfoot boot along with letters and newspaper articles about him.

The Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center in Gettysburg, which opened in 2013, also has a variety of exhibits about Stevens. This will be supplemented in 2023 when the new Adams County Historical Society museum opens. It will include an exhibit specifically about Thaddeus Stevens and his relation to Gettysburg and the surrounding Adams County.

But the really big event is still more than a year or two in the future. That will be when Stevens's house in Lancaster at the corner of Queen and Vine Streets is finally completed after more than 20 years of waiting.

Neglected for over a hundred years, the house was slated to be demolished in 2000 to make way for the Lancaster Convention Center. But Lancaster preservationists were able to save it and restore its exterior to its 1860s appearance. But after fixing up the outside, the effort was put on hold for a decade as other projects took precedence. Now planning and fundraising are in full swing and the multi-million dollar project promises to give the most comprehensive telling of Stevens career and fight for freedom and equality.  

In the meantime, the Thaddeus Stevens Society's collection remains in a residential house with only a few people seeing it. Perhaps some of the artifacts will end up at the Lancaster museum or at other locations that tell the Stevens story. But one thing is certain, the Society will continue to collect Stevens items and press for a Thaddeus Stevens mecca that can be visited by all the Stevens pilgrims. 

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

The Great Commoner, Fall 2022, No. 45, www.thaddeusstevenssociety.com

 Thaddeus Stevens Society to meet Sunday, Nov. 6, in Gettysburg

The Thaddeus Stevens Society will meet on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 1 p.m. at 27 E. Stevens Street in Gettysburg, PA. The meeting will include officer nominations for the next two years, a report on current projects, a view of the Society's collection of Stevens's artifacts and a walking tour of Stevens's sights in Gettysburg.

The meeting will be a potluck lunch, with drinks, spare ribs and potato salad provided. If you plan to attend, please email info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com or call 717-253-0099 and leave your name and whether you will be bringing a side dish. Members and nonmembers are welcomed. People can park in back of 27 E. Stevens Street and on the street.

Man honors Stevens with leg tattoo that mixes Thad with Terminator

There are many admirers of Thaddeus Stevens, but there is only one that we know of who has has honored Thad with a tattoo on his leg. Chris Beiler, who lives in Akron, PA, has been kind enough to write about the tattoo and how he has used it to teach his children about history.

By Chris Beiler

As an admirer of Thaddeus Stevens and a father of two young children, I often stretch the limits of my kids’ patience and attention spans when I drag them to historical sites, statue dedications, battlefields, and museums. I smile at the idea of my daughter explaining to her first grade teacher that we took a trip to a cemetery just to have her picture taken with the tomb of a man who died nearly a century and a half before she was born. At any rate, my kids have much more exposure to my historical heroes than is probably typical. 

While I hope that these experiences will have a strong impact on my children and on their world, I realize that there is a danger of leaving historical figures in the past. I don’t want Thaddeus Stevens to be just some guy who did the right thing a long time ago. In the minds of my kids, I want him to be someone whose character is a dynamic and inspirational force. Someone who has powerful words for issues that are still relevant today. Thad isn’t silent on today’s issues—we know what he had to say about wealth inequality and public education and attacks on voting rights.

So in my attempts to bring The Old Commoner to life for my kids, I tell them stories of a Thaddeus Stevens: Terminator. He’s a powerful superhero who combines Thad’s obsession for justice with robotic superhuman abilities, and an array of tools that will make short work of the forces promoting or allowing injustice. I ask my kids about the issues in the world that are important to them, and I make up stories of them addressing these issues with the help of a cyborg version of my favorite legislator. The stories are over-the-top and far-fetched. I often shoehorn explosions and daring escapes into situations that don’t really need them. To be frank, these stories aren’t particularly helpful in getting the kids to fall asleep. And it’s true that the real Thaddeus Stevens didn’t need lasers or a metallic skeleton, but the end result is my kids begging for bedtime stories that involve them working to make the world a more just place. What dad wouldn’t make that trade?

To pay tribute to the real Thad and to bring the Terminator version to life a little bit, I had the excellent tattoo artist Alex Zampirri tattoo the fictional version onto me. It’s funny and beautiful and a little bizarre, and it’s also started more than a few conversations about the real Thaddeus Stevens. Most importantly, it serves as a reminder that although Thad isn’t here today to fight for what’s right, we are still inspired and challenged by his example. Long live Thaddeus Stevens.

          Chris Beiler, Melanie Beiler, and children, Harold and Hannah

How the Thaddeus Stevens's Lancaster house should be restored

Thaddeus Stevens's house at the corner of Vine and Queen Streets in Lancaster, PA

     In August 2022, Lancaster Historical Society and its consultant, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, asked for comments on plans for Thaddeus Stevens's house in Lancaster, PA. Stevens Society President Ross Hetrick submitted the following.

The life of Thaddeus Stevens presents a unique paradox to American history. While he never rose to any higher position than a member of the House of Representatives, Stevens exercised power that was equivalent to that of the President and he had an impact on the United States that continues to this day. This can be attributed to the absence of southern representation in Congress during and after the Civil War, Steven’s unsurpassed  parliamentary abilities and  the sheer force of his personality. 

 

In the new Stevens biography by Bruce Levine, the famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass is quoted as saying this about Stevens: “There was in him the power of conviction, the power of will, the power of knowledge, and the power of conscious ability. . . at last made him more potent  in Congress and in the country than even the president and cabinet combined.” When Stevens died in 1868 his fame rivaled that of Lincoln and major newspapers filled their front pages with his passing. He lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, and 20,000 attended his funeral in Lancaster – half of them Black citizens. 

But in the decades following his death, Stevens’s fame nearly disappeared. This was partly due to his family and admirers doing very little to promote his memory. The Stevens legacy was also the victim of the “Lost Cause” mythology, which glorified the Confederacy and demonized abolitionists like Stevens. But even as the “Lost Cause” started to fade in the 1970s,  Stevens’s importance continued to be obscured as other Civil War and Reconstructions personalities were elevated at historical sites. .

This is why the Thaddeus Stevens Society was created in 1999 to rectify this situation by trying to secure the recognition Stevens  deserves. Though there have been significant achievements in the past 22 years, such as the erection of Stevens statues in Lancaster and Gettysburg, he continues to be neglected at places where he should be recognized. 

For instance, the National Park Service in recent years has launched a long overdue effort to provide sites connected to Reconstruction. But even though Stevens was a chief architect of Reconstruction, there is no mention of him on the Park Service’s Reconstruction Era website.  Similarly, the Park Service’s Gettysburg museum visitors center, opened in 2008, does not mention Stevens despite the fact the destruction of his Caledonia iron works was the largest civilian financial loss of the Gettysburg campaign.

Therefore, the Stevens Society wants to ensure that the proposed museum in Stevens’s house tells the complete and accurate story of his monumental achievements and is not diminished by other historical matters. It appears that information about Lydia Hamilton Smith and the Underground Railroad will occupy a significant portion of the buildings. And while these subjects were important in Stevens’s life, they should be dealt with in their proper proportion to Steven’s life and great achievements.

Smith was a remarkable woman and was an important part of Stevens’s life, but her accomplishments were not on a scale with Stevens’s. A good comparison of the Stevens-Smith relation is that between President James Buchanan and his niece Harriet Lane, the de-facto first lady during the administration of the bachelor president. She was of immeasurable help to her uncle and worked to have monuments erected to him after his death. Yet, Buchanan and Lane are not treated as equally important at the LancasterHistory’s museum and his Wheatland home.

The Underground Railroad was also an important part of Stevens’s anti-slavery activities. But Stevens was one of thousands of participants in the Underground Railroad and if he had not been involved, it would not have made a significant difference. In contrast, Stevens played a crucial role in the legislative process during and after the Civil War and if he had not been involved, events would have turned out very differently.

With this said, we urge that at least half of the new museum be devoted to Stevens’s legislative career, where he had the most impact on United States history. To do otherwise would give a disproportional view of Stevens’s importance and would continue the marginalization of Stevens’s memory. 

The Thaddeus Stevens Society is very excited about the prospect of a museum that tells the complete story of his amazing career and we stand ready to help in any way we can. And this advice is given in the spirit of providing another point of view that can be helpful in creating the best possible museum.

The McPherson house in Gettysburg and the Second Founding

The McPherson house in Gettysburg, PA, at 250 Carlisle Street

The following letter was sent to Gettysburg College President Robert Iuliano on August 9, 2022 about the historic McPherson house, which is owned by the college and has been vacant for several years. As of October 3, 2022, there has been no reply.

Dear President Iuliano:

Gettysburg College has a special opportunity to create an exhibit to diversity and inclusiveness by using a portion of the McPherson house to celebrate the Second Founding, highlighting the contributions of Edward McPherson, Thaddeus Stevens, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

The McPherson house is uniquely suited for this purpose because it was the home of Edward McPherson who was at the birth of the Second Founding. As clerk of the House of Representatives in 1865, McPherson worked with Thaddeus Stevens in excluding ex-Confederates from Congress on December 4, 1865. Without this particular action, the passage of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution would not have been possible and Reconstruction would not have happened. December 4, 1865 was the birth of the Second Founding and McPherson and Stevens were the figurative midwives.

The Second Founding has become an accepted designation for the period when the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments were adopted and the United States began the movement towards a more diverse and inclusive society. This historic period has been written about by famed historian Eric Foner in his book, The Second Founding, and the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia has been promoting the concept for many years.

An exhibit about the Second Founding at the McPherson house could serve as an excellent orientation tool for college students about the foundations of diversity and inclusion. It would also attract national attention, making Gettysburg as important to the Second Founding as Philadelphia is to the first founding. Also, since the project focuses on important current issues, it should make fundraising easier.

The Thaddeus Stevens Society stands ready to help Gettysburg College in reaching this very important and worthy goal.

Thank you for your consideration,

Ross Hetrick, president

Thaddeus Stevens Society

 

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 21

 Preserving Stevens's cemetery -- a national treasure

September 2022

By Ross Hetrick

"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 through a long life. Equality of man before his creator."

These are the words carved into the tomb of Thaddeus Stevens. He chose to be buried in the small Shreiner-Concord cemetery in Lancaster because it was the only integrated graveyard in the city when he died in 1868.  He wanted his final resting place to be a testament to his lifelong fight for equality. Yet, even though it is one of the most inspirational graves in the nation, the cemetery is not owned by any group or organization and depends on volunteers to be maintained.

To rectify this sad situation, the Thaddeus Stevens Society has launched an effort to have the cemetery's ownership transferred to some entity and to create an endowment fund so that the graveyard is taken care of indefinitely. It may take years to accomplish, but it absolutely needs to be done.

The cemetery at the intersection of Mulberry and Chestnut Streets in Lancaster is an acre in size and was started by Martin Shreiner, a clockmaker, in 1836. It is filled with some impressive monuments, many more modest tombstones and even an area that is believed to have been reserved for indigent individuals. 

Like many family enterprises, by the third generation, Martin Shreiner's descendants decided they had other things to do and they abandoned the cemetery in the mid-twentieth century. Because it is a cemetery, taxes were not assessed and no government agency acquired the property. Since then the graveyard has depended on the kindness of volunteers and this has ebbed and flowed, leaving the cemetery in bad shape in some decades.

Currently the graveyard is being looked after by the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery Foundation, a volunteer group, which does a good job of maintaining the property with limited resources. The city of Lancaster also lends a hand by cutting the grass. But these efforts could fade away, as they have in the past.

The cemetery is a historical and inspirational treasure that should be preserved by historical groups as well as local, state and federal agencies. If you would like to be part of the effort to help restructure this cemetery, please contact the Thaddeus Stevens Society at info@thaddeusstevenssociety.com

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

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 20

 Gettysburg College students should learn about Thaddeus Stevens

August 2022

By Ross Hetrick

Hundreds of  first-year students at Gettysburg College trooped from their campus to the Gettysburg National Cemetery on August 25 to hear about Lincoln's immortal address. It would have also been the perfect time for them to hear about Thaddeus Stevens who played a crucial role in the history of the college and the nation. 

As a member of the Pennsylvania state house in 1834, Stevens got the fledgling college an $18,000 appropriation to build the college's first building -- Pennsylvania Hall, the college's iconic building. But Stevens's support of the college provoked a political firestorm. 

In reaction, Stevens said: "Let demagogues note it for future use, and send it on the wings of the wind to the ears of every one of my constituents, in matters of this kind, I would rather hear the approving voice of one judicious, intelligent, and enlightened mind, than to be greeted by the loud huzzas of the whole host of ignorance." This set the tone for the rest of Stevens's life whether it involved promoting education, destroying slavery or supporting women's rights. 

After getting the money, the college had trouble finding property to put it on. Once again, Stevens came to the  rescue by providing six acres at a price determined by the board of trustees. In turn, Stevens was put on the board, where he served for the rest of his life. 

Then in 1854, the college board shocked Stevens by considering leaving Gettysburg. "If the scheme you refer to be real," Stevens wrote a fellow board member, "it is an attempt to violate an executed contract with the people of Adams County and is atrocious." Stevens attended the next board meeting and browbeat the board into agreeing never to leave Gettysburg.

Besides his service to Gettysburg College, Stevens was also the Savior of Public Education in Pennsylvania, Father of the 14th Amendment and one of the architects of Reconstruction. 

Hopefully, either this year or in the future, new students at Gettysburg College will hear about one of the most important persons in their college's history, who was also a national hero.

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

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 19

 Thaddeus Stevens -- movie star

July 2022

By Ross Hetrick

Thaddeus Stevens has been the subject of three Hollywood portrayals. Twice as a villain and once as a hero.

Stevens initial movie appearance was more than an hundred years ago in the first epic movie, Birth of a Nation, by legendary filmmaker, D.W. Griffith. The 1915 silent film pioneered such revolutionary film techniques as close ups, rapid cutting montage and tracking shots. But it also championed rank racial bigotry and glorified the Ku Klux Klan.

A central character is Austin Stoneman, a thinly veiled caricature  of Stevens. He was played as a vengeful congressman intent on punishing white southerners. The movie specifically blamed Stoneman's mixed race housekeeper for influencing him. "A great leader's weakness that is to blight a nation," read one of the movie's title panels.

Despite protests and even riots against the movie, Birth of a Nation proved to be an enormous blockbuster film and is credited with reviving the Ku Klu Klan in the 1920s.

The next film Stevens appeared in was in 1942.  Tennessee Johnson is an obscure bio picture about the 17th president Andrew Johnson. Van Heflin, a matinee idol of the time, played Johnson and  Stevens was played by Lionel Barrymore of the famous acting family.

Once again, Stevens was cast as the villain of the drama. But in this case, word got out before the film was released and Stevens admirers were able to get the Office of War Information -- which was set up during World War II -- to get MGM to make $100,000 worth of changes to soften Stevens's image.

Yet, Stevens still comes across as a fanatic intent on punishing southern whites and the Johnson character accused Stevens of trying to make slaves of whites. "You are a very sincere man, and that's what makes you so dangerous," Johnson said. "You have the sincerity and will and force. You have the drive of a great fanatic." he said 

Stevens's most recent film appearance was 10 years ago in Steven Spielberg's movie, Lincoln. Famed playwright and Stevens admirer, Tony Kushner, wrote the film and gave the congressman a prominent role in the story about the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery. Stevens was played by Tommy Lee Jones.

Even though the film was riddled with historic errors and repeated various smears against Stevens, it did capture his absolute dedication to destroying slavery. This was particularly shown in one scene where a fellow congressman rebuked Stevens for shading his position on equality for the sake of passing the amendment. "Is there nothing you won't say," the fictional representative said to Stevens.

"I want the amendment to pass so that the Constitution's first and only mention of slavery is it's absolute prohibition." Stevens said to the fellow legislator. "For this amendment, which I have worked all of my life, for which countless colored men and women have fought and died in the hundreds of thousands of soldiers -- No sir, no there is nearly nothing I won't say."

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

Thaddeus Stevens Chronicles No. 18

 Elsie Singmaster -- Defender of Thaddeus Stevens

June 2022

By Ross Hetrick

Elsie Singmaster, one of the most famous novelists to come from Gettysburg, came to the defense of Thaddeus Stevens in 1943 when he was being vilified in a Hollywood film and then went on to write a book about the Great Commoner.

In 1942, MGM made a bio picture about President Andrew Johnson with an all star cast of Van Heflin as Johnson, Ruth Hussey as his wife and Lionel Barrymore as his nemesis, Thaddeus Stevens. In keeping with the distorted picture of Stevens in those days, the movie portrayed him as a vindictive fanatic intent on punishing the South and getting Johnson removed from office. Singmaster would have none of it.

In a recent talk to a Gettysburg women's group, Susan Colestock Hill, a Singmaster expert, shared a letter written by the novelist to the Office of War Information in February 1943. "As a resident of Gettysburg, which has the proud distinction of having been the home of Thaddeus Stevens for twenty-six years, as a citizen of Pennsylvania which owes him her great system of common schools, and as a student of American history, I wish to protest against the distortion of his character now appearing in a motion picture," Singmaster wrote.

"To present him to hundreds and thousands of Americans merely as a vindictive old man is as false and cruel as it was to present him as a vicious old man in the [1915 movie] "Birth of a Nation." We are fighting now for the rights of the oppressed -- how can we misrepresent our Great Commoner, who, above all Americans, lifted up his voice for the lowly and downtrodden," the letter concluded.

When Singmaster wrote this protest she was already a well established storyteller and novelist, chronicling the lives of  Pennsylvania Germans as well as telling Civil War stories. She went on to write a novel about Stevens, entitled I Speak for Thaddeus Stevens, that was published in 1947.

It was very sympathetic towards Stevens and faithfully followed the contours of his life as found in various biographies. However, it was written as a novel without footnotes and some of the details may have been included under poetic license.

One particular example referred to Stevens's involvement in the Anti-Masonic party of the 1820s and 30s that sprang up in reaction to abuses by the Freemasons. Singmaster's novel has Stevens horseback riding near the Mount Alto Furnace when "workmen called at him to stop, 'Can't!' he shouted back. 'I'm hunting Masons!' 

It is so much like Stevens's acerbic wit that it is sad that it can't be found anywhere else.

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