Thaddeus stevens biography freedmens bureau

The New York Times called him “the Evil Genius of the Republican Party.” The Confederate army that invaded Pennsylvania in dispatched cavalry to burn down his iron foundry, just to spite him.

Thaddeus stevens biography freedmens bureau

The president of the United States suggested that he should be hanged. After he died, in , his party decided to honor him by nominating him for reelection to Congress. He won in a landslide.

His name was Thaddeus Stevens and for a time he was the most powerful man in Congress, famous across America as “The Old Commoner,” loved by many, loathed by many more.

But over the last century his once famous name faded into the mists of history, until Tommy Lee Jones brought his spirit back to life in Steven Spielberg’s hit movie Lincoln. Jones plays Stevens as a snide, cynical, misanthropic old pol with a bad wig and a black mistress.

In one scene, Stevens, speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, lambastes a proslavery congressman, calling him “proof that some men are inferior, e