Granite post to honor Thaddeus Stevens as part of the Green project
Andy Wasserman, the lead artist on the Danville Green project, was impressed by the movie Lincoln and the part Thaddeus Stevens played in the passage of the 13th Amendment that…
Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–Congressional Career
By Paul Chouinard
Elected as a Whig to Congress in 1848, Stevens served the traditional two terms. While in Congress he delivered several major speeches against the Compromise of 1850, protesting the Fugitive Slave Law and the extension of slavery into the territories. During his first term Stevens gave an emotionally charged speech, “The Slave Question,” in which he challenged his colleagues: “You and I, and the sixteen millions are free, while we fasten iron chains, and rivet manacles on four millions of our fellow men; tear their wives and children from them; separate them; sell them and doom them to perpetual, eternal bondage. Are we not then despots – despots such as history will brand and God abhors?”
Upon the passage of the Fugitive Salve Law of 1850, Stevens defended runaway slaves. In the celebrated 1851 Christiana trial, Stevens served as one of two defense lawyers for thirty-eight blacks accused of murdering a slaveholder. All defendants were acquitted.
Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–Public Life in Pennsylvania
By Paul Chouinard
Thaddeus Stevens’ friendship with Samuel Merrill, who shared his experience of being from Peacham, attending Caledonia County Academy and graduating from Dartmouth College, led him to move from Peacham to York, Pennsylvania, in February of 1815. Merrill, who was preceptor at Dr. Perkins’ Academy in York, recommended his friend for employment, and Thaddeus spent a year teaching while continuing his study of law at the office of David Cossett. His salary as a teacher was about $100 for the year.
By the beginning of the summer of 1816, Thaddeus felt he was prepared to take the bar exam. The members of the York County Bar Association had adopted a rule that no one could be admitted to the bar who had not devoted at least one year exclusively to the study of law. For that reason, Thaddeus made a decision to take the exam in Bel Air, Maryland, the shire town of Hartford County. Toward the end of August, 1816, Thaddeus made his way to Bel Air to take the exam. The examining committee consisted of Chief Justice Hopper Nicholson, Theoderic Bland, Zebulon Hollingsworh and General William H. Winder of the Sixth Judicial District. They met in the dining room of a local inn. The Judge informed Stevens that before questioning could commence, “there must be two bottles of Madeira on the table, and the applicant must order it in.” Stevens complied, the wine was poured, and the questioning began. What law books had he read? He replied that he had read Blackstone, Coke upon Littleton, a work on pleading, and Gilbert on evidence. Three more questions were asked.
Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–The School Years
By Paul Chouinard
Common schools were organized in Danville in 1790 with the creation of five school districts, which included Danville Center. They attended school in Danville before moving to Peacham. Around the year of 1807, Sarah moved her family to Peacham, so her boys could have the benefit of attending Caledonia County Academy, later known as Caledonia County Grammar School and most recently, Peacham Academy.
According to Ernest Bogart, author of Peacham’s history The Story of a Vermont Hill Town, the primary requirement for admission was: “No person shall be admitted to study reading, spelling or grammar or any higher branch who shall not already have acquired as much knowledge of the English language as to read in any common English book as correctly as to be able to study English grammar to advantage.” Thaddeus’ mother had prepared him well to meet this challenge by the time he was admitted at age 15.
The Academy was open to all students from Caledonia County. A monthly tuition fee of 12 1/2 cents per month was charged in 1808. The Stevens family lived in what was known as the Graham place, now owned by Raymond Welch, about one and one-half miles from Peacham Corner. For the privilege of living there with her family, it is believed that Sally provided housekeeping services for the owners of the home. In 1808 Sarah received the support of her father, Abner, when he returned from Stanstead, Quebec to live with her family following the death of her mother. Thaddeus walked to school, which given his physical disability, was no small accomplishment. The distance to the Academy was about one and one-half miles uphill. The walk was long and arduous in the winter since the roads were rolled rather than plowed. During a thaw one would sink into the deeply packed snow.
Thaddeus Stevens in the Limelight–Early Life in Danville
By Paul Chouinard
Thaddeus Stevens has recently been featured in Steven Spielberg’s, Lincoln, released nationwide on November 16, 2012, and was nominated for twelve Oscar nominations. In Spielberg’s film, based on American historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Thaddeus Stevens is portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones. It is the first time since his death in 1868 that he has been portrayed in an objective, historically accurate manner.
For years Stevens’ reputation has suffered as a result of his portrayal of the thinly disguised character, Austin Stoneman, a fanatical villain in D.W. Griffith’s landmark silent film Birth of a Nation. During the 1940s, Stevens was portrayed as a villain in Tennessee Johnson, a biographical film about President Andrew Johnson. As the antagonist in both films, Stevens is portrayed as an unreasonable, hostile, adversarial individual who would let nothing stand in his way to meet his goal of punishing the South and insuring the rights of the freedmen through his vision of Reconstruction.
Spielberg’s Lincoln focuses on divisions within Lincoln’s cabinet and the acrimonious debate within Congress, during the last year of the war, over the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution freeing the slaves. The fear that the legality of the Emancipation Proclamation might be challenged by the southern states, once they were readmitted to the Union, made the passage of the 13th Amendment essential. While the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the slaves, the 13th Amendment made slavery illegal forever.
Public invitation from Danville Masons Sunday, April 7
Danville’s Masonic Hall receives historic preservation grant Washburn Masonic Lodge#92, located on beautiful Danville Green for the past 119 years, is pleased to announce a historical Preservation Grant made possible…
Man on a Ladder
Gordon W. Bess–Danville’s oldest man at 92 and climbing
By Sharon Lakey
For photo album, gathered and shared by Linda Bess, Gordon and Gerry’s daughter, click here: Gordon Bess
Gordon Bess is an organized man. He credits this to his twenty-year military career. He was born and raised in Meriden, Connecticut, known as the Silver City. His younger brother, Ronald, was also a military man, joining the Marine Corps and serving during the Korean War. Ronald is still living in Meriden. Gordon’s younger sister, Lois, died in January 2004 at the age of 81.
April, 1863–The North Star Takes a Shot at Thurlow Weed and Laments the Firing of Gen. George McClellan
By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society
Desperation over the war effort continued to be one of main themes in the North Star’s reporting and opinion columns. The paper’s commentary also brings its political stripes into clearer focus.
April 4, 1863 North Star, Government Expenses
The Newburyport Herald says our national expenses since this war commenced have been greater than from the origin of the Government down to 1861, a period of seventy-two years. Our whole nation expenses to the time of the rebellion, including the war with England, the Mexican war, and our many Indian wars, were $1,353,785,000: and were the war to cease now no one imagines that our debt would be less than $2,009,000,000 created in less than two years…
Every day since the war began our expenses have increased. Millions are voted by Congress for emancipation purposes, Pacific Railroads, and anything, and everything, and where the limit might be reached, or what will be the end, Heaven only knows.
March 1863–Amidst Unspeakable Cruelty, the North Star Struggles with Desperation, Racism and Hope
By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society
March 7,1863 North Star, Our Negro Troops
Our New Orleans correspondent confirms the rumors which have been current as to difficulties between the white and black regiments at Ship Island and Baton Rouge in the Department of the Gulf. We see no reason why this state of things should be allowed to spring up. White and black troops should not be brigaded together or stationed together. The Proclamation specified the use to which black troops should be primarily put, when raised, as “garrisoning forts and positions,” and there are forts enough in our hands in the Gulf Department to furnish duty for ten times the number of black troops we have there…
When the sickly weather comes on in the Gulf and on the river, our white soldiers will be glad enough to have this work taken off their hands by the acclimated negroes; and there will be no quarrelling for precedence in the duty.…
We need not doubt that Col. Higginson’s black battalion exhibited all the “fiery energy” which can be claimed for them: but the greater part of the men of the South will require a great deal of discipline and training before their fiery energy can be relied on in the field of battle.
February 1863–Was the Danville North Star a Copperhead?
By Gary Farrow, Danville Historical Society
The North Star was not abolitionist. During the War, political positions arose along a continuum. On one end of the spectrum were Radical Abolitionists, who saw slavery as a moral imperative that must triumph at all costs; on the other were the Peace Democrats or Copperheads, who wanted peace with the Confederates at any price. In between were the War Democrats, who rejected the Copperheads faction that controlled the Democratic Party. These War Democrats joined with the Republicans to support the war effort against the South. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in all rebel states, had just taken effect in January. Now in February, the North Star became more explicit about where it stood.
February 21,1863 North Star, What is Radicalism?
Wendell Phillips defined Radicalism in a late speech at Plymouth Church, when he said: -“Now, I would accept anything on an antislavery basis. I would accept separation. I would accept compromise. I would accept peace, and pay the whole Confederate debt at par on an antislavery basis. On that basis, I have touched the hard path of National existence. I have reached the granite strata, and may begin to build agrarian peace. And until I reach that no chicanery of parties, no ingenuity of compromise, no manner of separation can make any difference. We are in for the war.”