Thaddeus Stevens

December 14, 2020
Historian Levine (The Fall of the House of Dixie) reassesses the life of abolitionist congressman Thaddeus Stevens in this fascinating yet flawed biography. Levine traces Stevens’s rise from poverty in Vermont, where he was born with a club foot in 1792, to chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee during the Civil War and early supporter of the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act and undermining Reconstruction measures passed by Congress. Levine is at his best documenting the evolution of Stevens’s views on slavery, from the seeds of abolitionist thinking planted as a student at Dartmouth to his rise in the tentatively anti-slavery faction of the Whig Party in the 1840s, brief alignment with the nativist Know-Nothings in the 1850s, and pivotal role as a leader of the radical Republicans pushing for the Emancipation Proclamation and a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. Though he provides valuable historical context and ably tracks the era’s landmark legislation through Congress and the White House, Levine falls short in explaining how Stevens accrued and exerted his outsized political power. Still, this is an accessible and well-researched introduction to one of the most consequential lawmakers in U.S. history.

December 15, 2020
The notorious "Radical Republican" gets his day in the sun. Though Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) was considered a villain for decades after his death, many historians now agree that he fought for the highest ideals of democracy. An ambitious Pennsylvania lawyer, he became an abolitionist in the 1830s, writes Levine in this useful biographical portrait. Most contemporaries and historians, at least until the 1960s, considered abolitionists fanatics and devoted much energy to analyzing their motives (a sense of justice was apparently off-limits). Although the author admits that Stevens excelled in sarcasm and invective, regularly enraging Southern representatives, who considered abuse their monopoly, the demagogue portrayed by previous historians is nowhere in evidence here. Stevens chaired the powerful Ways and Means Committee when war broke out in 1861. A pivotal figure, he urged Lincoln to free the slaves long before the president came around. By 1865, Northern leaders, exasperated by the war, had lost their objection to emancipation, but almost everyone (historians included) considered that an end in itself. Only Radical Republicans urged that the freed slaves receive legal protection, the vote, and opportunity to make a living. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, aided Radicals by his sheer dreadfulness. He proclaimed publicly that Blacks were inferior and unfit for citizenship and vetoed legislation to aid them. Pardoning prominent Confederates, he welcomed all-White state representatives back into Congress. These actions, along with widespread oppression, violence, and murder, offended Northern opinion enough to persuade moderates to vote with Radicals who were always a minority. With Stevens' support, Congress rejected all-White delegations, overturned Johnson's vetoes, sent troops to protect freed slaves, and passed the 14th Amendment, which aimed to ensure legal protection but defeated other commendable efforts such as enforcing voting rights and distributing land to freed slaves. Because Stevens died at the peak of Reconstruction, he did not witness its failure. A convincing rehabilitation of a statesman who fought for equality before it became fashionable.

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January 1, 2021

Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) was a politician known for his staunch opposition to slavery during the Civil War, and is sometimes seen as the original champion of civil rights and one of the chief influences in Abraham Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. In this biography, Levine (emeritus, history, Univ. of Illinois; The Fall of the House of Dixie) thoroughly examines and documents Stevens's early life growing up in Vermont, following the development of his vision of a society with racial justice. The author describes how this culminated in Stevens's actions as a lawyer in Gettysburg, PA, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he helped lead the Radical Republicans faction. Extensively researched, this work details Stevens's many political successes, including his profound influence on the development of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Conversely, Levine also includes the politician's personal disappointments just before his death in 1868 over his perceived failure to achieve complete success in making the United States a "full multiracial democracy." VERDICT Easily the most detailed and important account of Stevens, this well-written biography belongs in every academic library and all other libraries with an emphasis on American history.--Steve Dixon, State Univ. of New York, Delhi

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2021
Civil War expert Levine (The Fall of the House of Dixie, 2013) takes a fresh approach to the life of abolitionist and congressman Thaddeus Stevens, whose native state, Vermont, abolished slavery before he was born. His farming family's conditions were straitened, but he was blessed with a mother who valued education, and young Thaddeus moved to Pennsylvania to commence a legal career that involved representing parties in fugitive-slave cases, presaging positions Stevens would advocate when he entered politics. Whether in his adopted state's constitutional controversies of the 1830s or in Congress, where he served for almost 14 years until his death in 1868, Stevens would be found on the radically progressive edge of key issues. He favored the abolition of slavery, equal rights for Black people, and the franchise of women. For what they considered extreme views, debate opponents would excoriate the quick-witted Stevens, whose slashing retorts Levine sprinkles throughout his accounts of Stevens' powerful legislative influence regarding postwar constitutional amendments and Reconstruction. Levine's biography of the South's much-loathed Northern antagonist is a fine addition to the literature of this ever-relevant era.

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