Thaddeus Stevens. Commoner
Thaddeus Stevens. Commoner

Author: Edward Belcher Callender

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2024-05-30

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 3385482127

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

Thaddeus Stevens
Thaddeus Stevens

Author: Hans L. Trefousse

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2000-11-09

Total Pages: 331

ISBN-13: 0807864994

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

One of the most controversial figures in nineteenth-century American history, Thaddeus Stevens is best remembered for his role as congressional leader of the radical Republicans and as a chief architect of Reconstruction. Long painted by historians as a vindictive 'dictator of Congress,' out to punish the South at the behest of big business and his own ego, Stevens receives a more balanced treatment in Hans L. Trefousse's biography, which portrays him as an impassioned orator and a leader in the struggle against slavery. Trefousse traces Stevens's career through its major phases: from his days in the Pennsylvania state legislature, when he antagonized Freemasons, slaveholders, and Jacksonian Democrats, to his political involvement during Reconstruction, when he helped author the Fourteenth Amendment and spurred on the passage of the Reconstruction Acts and the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. Throughout, Trefousse explores the motivations for Stevens's lifelong commitment to racial equality, thus furnishing a fuller portrait of the man whose fervent opposition to slavery helped move his more moderate congressional colleagues toward the implementation of egalitarian policies.

An Uncommon Woman
An Uncommon Woman

Author: Mark Kelley

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2023-11-21

Total Pages: 371

ISBN-13: 0271098732

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813–1884) was a prominent African American businesswoman in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and the longtime housekeeper, life companion, and collaborator of the state’s abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens. In his biography of this remarkable woman, Mark Kelley reveals how Smith served the cause of abolition, managed Stevens’s household, acquired property, and crossed racialized social boundaries. Born a free woman near Gettysburg, Smith began working for Stevens in 1844. Her relationship with Stevens fascinated and infuriated many, and it made Smith a highly recognizable figure both locally and nationally. The two walked side by side in Lancaster and in Washington, DC, as they worked to secure the rights of African Americans, sheltered people on the Underground Railroad, managed two households, raised her sons and his nephews, and built a real-estate business. In the last years of Stevens’s life, as his declining health threatened to short-circuit his work, Smith risked her own well-being to keep him alive while he led the drive to end slavery, impeach Andrew Johnson, and push for the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments. An Uncommon Woman is a vital history that accords Lydia Hamilton Smith the recognition that she deserves. Every American should know Smith’s inspiring story.