"More imaginatively than any other Stevens biographer, Fawn Brodie has speculated upon the emotional springs of the man's behavior. More resourcefully than any other, she has brought out the objective conditions to which he related his views on the South. Her book must be taken into account by all serious students of the Civil War and Reconstruction." ―Richard N. Current, William F. Allen Professor of History, The University of Wisconsin In this biography of the chief architect of Reconstruction after the Civil War, Fawn Brodie seeks to explain the basis for his actions, the nature of his economic radicalism, and the emotional forces that resulted in his becoming one of the most controversial figures in American history. She describes his roles as father of the Fourteenth Amendment and prosecutor in the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, his relations with Lincoln, and his battles for black suffrage and schooling.Online comment: "Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts Senator who suffered humiliation at the cane of South Carolinian Preston Brooks, declared in 1862 that the Southern States “ceased to exist,” even if they should return to the Union. He reasoned that this was the only way to secure universal political and civil rights for all Americans regardless of race, and while he later balked at Stanton’s pressuring to expand the Fourteenth Amendment to include women, Thaddeus Stevens, the “Great Commoner,” embraced the cause. Stevens is a fine example of the “Jacobin” revolutionary spirit during the War. At one time, most historians categorized and described the leaders of the “radical” wing of the Republican Party as “Jacobins.” That has since changed (witness the way Thad and his ilk were portrayed in Spielberg Lincoln) and while the radical Republicans attempted to distance themselves from that term, it was no stretch to call them that. Stevens, in fact, was their greatest crusader. His war was to “punish the South” and “remake the South,” but more importantly to remake the United States as a whole. He supported all reform causes expect temperance and pseudo-bourgeois moral righteousness restrictions on foul language. Stevens was alone here. Nearly every radical Republican favored prohibition. Theirs was a Puritanical crusade against both private and public immorality. "

Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge Of The South PDF

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