Thaddeus Stevens: “Old Commoner”

By Paul Chouinard, Pres­i­dent of the Danville His­tor­i­cal Society

On Sun­day Octo­ber 30, The Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety and the Danville Cham­ber of Com­merce will hon­or Thad­deus Stevens in a cer­e­mo­ny for the unveil­ing of an etch­ing of his por­trait that is being pre­sent­ed to the Ver­mont State­house. The cer­e­mo­ny will be held at the Danville Con­gre­ga­tion­al Church and begin at 2:00 PM to be fol­lowed by a recep­tion in the Church din­ing room.

Jan­u­ary 10, 2010, Ver­mont Civ­il War His­to­ri­an, Howard Cof­fin, addressed the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety at its Annu­al Meet­ing, focus­ing on Danville’s involve­ment in the Civ­il War. Fol­low­ing deliv­ery of his address, Mr. Cof­fin sug­gest­ed that he felt it would be a most appro­pri­ate sesqui­cen­ten­ni­al project for the Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety to coor­di­nate an effort to raise funds for com­mis­sion­ing a por­trait of Thad­deus Stevens to be pre­sent­ed to the State­house for inclu­sion in its col­lec­tion of por­traits of promi­nent Vermonters.

It is iron­ic that in the 219 years since the birth of Thad­deus Stevens that the only memo­r­i­al in Ver­mont to his lega­cy as one of America’s great civ­il rights advo­cates is a State Depart­ment of His­toric Sites mark­er on Danville Green indi­cat­ing Danville as the place of his birth. There has nev­er been any pub­lic por­trait or piece of sculp­ture hon­or­ing the enor­mous con­tri­bu­tions he made on the nation­al lev­el to affect the eman­ci­pa­tion of the slaves and to grant them civ­il rights.

The Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety believes that Thad­deus Stevens’ point of view and his val­ues were clear­ly devel­oped as a result of his per­son­al expe­ri­ence in cop­ing with a dis­abil­i­ty and in hav­ing been raised in pover­ty in a state which val­ued and pro­tect­ed indi­vid­ual rights and per­son­al lib­er­ties. His for­ma­tive years in Danville and as a stu­dent in Peacham, at Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Gram­mar School, clear­ly influ­enced his phi­los­o­phy and val­ues, which were reflect­ed in his pub­lic life.

Thad­deus Stevens, the sec­ond son of Joshua and Sal­ly Mor­rill Stevens, was born in Danville, Ver­mont April 4, 1792. Like his old­est broth­er Joshua, who had two club feet, Thad­deus was born with a club foot. Fol­low­ing the birth of two addi­tion­al sib­lings, Abn­er and Alan­son, their father aban­doned the fam­i­ly. Their moth­er ded­i­cat­ed her life to her sons, strug­gling to over­come pover­ty and pro­vide them with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to receive an education.

Fol­low­ing their father’s depar­ture, Sal­ly moved her fam­i­ly to Mor­rill Vil­lage, what we today know as Greenbank’s Hol­low. About 1807, Sal­ly sold her farm in Danville and moved to Peacham so that her boys could attend Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Gram­mar School (Peacham Acad­e­my). Thad­deus’ infir­mi­ty set him apart and made him the object of ridicule and dis­crim­i­na­tion. He did gain respect as an out­stand­ing stu­dent, grad­u­at­ing from Cale­do­nia Coun­ty Gram­mar School in 1811 and gain­ing admis­sion to Dart­mouth Col­lege as a sopho­more. He grad­u­at­ed from Dart­mouth in 1814 and returned to Peacham to teach and read law with John Mat­tock – lawyer, banker and influ­en­tial politician.

Based on a friend­ship formed at Dart­mouth with a young men­tor, Samuel Mer­rill, who also hailed from Peacham, Thad­deus was con­vinced to move to Penn­syl­va­nia to teach and con­tin­ue study­ing law. In 1815 he moved to York, Penn­syl­va­nia, where he taught at Dr. Perkins’ Acad­e­my. He was admit­ted to the bar in Bel Air, Mary­land, in 1816. He soon estab­lished a rep­u­ta­tion for him­self as an out­stand­ing attor­ney. In 1833 he was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Penn­syl­va­nia where he become a strong advo­cate for free pub­lic edu­ca­tion, which led to the pas­sage of a law to pro­vide free pub­lic edu­ca­tion to the chil­dren of Penn­syl­va­nia; it became a prece­dent which was fol­lowed by oth­er states.

He was elect­ed to the Unit­ed States Con­gress, serv­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives 1849–1853 and 1859–1868. James Albert Wood­burn, one­time pro­fes­sor of Amer­i­can his­to­ry and pol­i­tics, at Indi­ana Uni­ver­si­ty, has said:

“Thad­deus Stevens was the dom­i­nant fig­ure in the Amer­i­can Con­gress dur­ing this notable peri­od (Civ­il War and Recon­struc­tion). It may rea­son­ably be claimed that no more mas­ter­ful leader ever direct­ed the pol­i­tics and leg­is­la­tion of the House of Representatives…and it may be said that for a part of this decade he led both the House and the nation by the sheer force and ener­gy of his mind and will.”

Richard Nel­son, pro­fes­sor of his­to­ry at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois, has writ­ten that Stevens

“had exert­ed more influ­ence upon Amer­i­can leg­is­la­tion, dur­ing the decade of con­flict, than any oth­er per­son in the Unit­ed States! …War tax­es, tar­iffs, green­backs, transcon­ti­nen­tal rail­roads, ‘forty acres and a mule,’ the Thir­teenth, Four­teenth, and Fif­teenth Amend­ments, the recon­struc­tion acts, the impeach­ment pro­ceed­ings – these things and many more were large­ly his handiwork.”

In the Memo­r­i­al Address­es On The Life And Char­ac­ter Of Thad­deus Stevens deliv­ered in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Decem­ber 17,1868, Ver­mont Rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Luke Poland, stated:

“Mr. Speak­er: I rise to sec­ond the res­o­lu­tions offered by the gen­tle­man from Pennsylvania…The peo­ple of Ver­mont always loved to believe that the strong love of free­dom and inde­pen­dence for all men exhib­it­ed by him (Thad­deus Stevens) – his hatred of all forms of oppres­sion, and his efforts to ele­vate and ben­e­fit the masses,were, to some extent, due to his being born in Ver­mont. The ear­ly his­to­ry of Ver­mont was that of a con­tin­u­al strug­gle against what they deemed to be unlaw­ful and unjust attempts of oth­er states to obtain juris­dic­tion and exer­cise gov­ern­men­tal pow­er over them. These strug­gles had ceased, to be sure, pri­or to the birth of Mr. Stevens; but the heroes and states­men who were her lead­ers in those try­ing days were still alive and gave tone and tem­per to pub­lic sen­ti­ment and opin­ion for many years after. We have loved to believe in Ver­mont that the free and inde­pen­dent opin­ions inhaled by him in his youth with the free air of our grand moun­tains in some degree con­tributed to make him what he was so emphat­i­cal­ly, the friend of the oppressed and the foe of the oppres­sor. Like oth­er men, he had his faults; but he has done so much for the great cause of human­i­ty that his and all future gen­er­a­tions in this land have ample cause to bless and revere his memory.”