Making No Distinctions Between Rich and Poor: Thaddeus Stevens and Class Equality

He was beloved by former slaves who viewed him as champion of their cause for freedom and equal rights. The South despised him as the instigator of the radical Reconstruction policies that plagued the region for more than a decade; Southern author Thomas Dixon even based his character Austin Stoneman on him in his work, The Clansman, which became the basis for D.W. Griffith's infamous film Birth of a Nation in 1915.¹ During the Civil War and Reconstruction eras of U.S. history, few men garnered as much power in Congress as Pennsylvania Republican Thaddeus Stevens. He was instrumental in matters such as financing the war, bringing the infant Republican Party to dominance in national politics, prosecuting Andrew Johnson's impeachment trial in 1868, and fashioning many pieces of civil rights legislation that helped African Americans commence their new freedom with the support of the federal government.

Since his death in 1868, historians have offered various interpretations of this controversial figure. Those who viewed Stevens positively labeled him as a "commoner," a person intent on implementing political and economic equality all through the country. In 1882 E. B. Callender subtitled his biography on Thaddeus Stevens "Commoner," stating that his mission in life "was the equality of all men" and to help "the sick and poor." In his book Alphonse B. Miller acknowledged Stevens's "fervor for equality," as well as pointing to the inscription on his tombstone, "Equality of Man Before His Creator," as definitive proof that even in death Stevens "insisted on fighting the battle of egalitarianism." Likewise, Fawn M. Brodie noted in Thaddeus Stevens: Scourge of the South that most of his legislation was egalitarian in nature, while Hans L. Trefousse subtitled his work on Thaddeus Stevens Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian; Trefousse utilized Stevens' passion for abolition and public education as conclusive evidence of his lasting legacy of egalitarianism.²

Several biographers extended Stevens's egalitarianism further to portray him as an enemy of wealth and privilege. Samuel W. McCall observed that the Pennsylvanian "deemed no man so poor or friendless as to be beneath the equal protection of the laws, and none so powerful to rise above their sway." He concluded, "Privilege never had a more powerful nor a more consistent foe." Thomas Frederick Woodley used the term The Great Leveler as the title of his biography, so designating him as the leveler when it came to his political life and career, and James Albert Woodburn portrayed him as a "relentless foe of Privilege" in The Life of Thaddeus Stevens.³

On the other hand, some historians have been very critical of Stevens's support for the protective tariff and American industry, considering him a defender of the elite rather than the common person. In Old Thad Stevens: A Story of Ambition, Richard N. Current identified the Pennsylvania congressman as a "champion" of Northern industrialists, at the same time claiming that Stevens assisted in bringing about "the Age of Big Business, with its concentration of wealth, its diffusion of poverty, its inequalities and its inequities." Furthermore, Alphonse Miller, who did recognize the egalitarian propensities of the Commoner, wrote that Stevens "was the most powerful legislative advocate that big business had."⁴

Both historical interpretations reflected only part of Stevens's true thinking on economic issues. While he did spend his life aiding the poor and oppressed, he also sought to bolster the upper class and business community. Stevens was more a complex economic and political thinker than a guardian of the poor or a representative of the elite. Like most Republicans of that era, he displayed an obsession with the concept of equality, whether political or economic, due to the fact that he staunchly believed in the "absolute equality of all men before the law."⁵ Whether they endorsed the freedom and political rights of African Americans, defended the different economic classes from oppression by the government, or professed the concept of equality of opportunity for everybody, Republicans believed they were trying to treat all citizens equally. Thaddeus Stevens was no different. The Commoner...