I am no professional historian, but as a citizen of Lancaster and the filmmaker who directed the Thaddeus Stevens documentary in 2005 for the local Historical Society, I know a few things about history here in our region. Let me share what I have learned with you now.
Back in the mid 1800s when our nation was far more divided than it is now, it was the time of the Civil War and slavery and the moral character of our nation hung in the balance. It was at this most pivotal moment that Thaddeus Stevens was a voice for equality of the races within the US Congress. He was, in fact, one of the bravest and most morally just Americans in our nation's history. We have every right to claim him as ours here in Lancaster, Pennsylvania because his legacy is our legacy.
Thaddeus Stevens was a lawyer, and it was an early case in his career that shaped the man Thaddeus was to become. With his fabulous oratory, he argued in court that a slave who made her escape to Pennsylvania and was caught should be returned to her rightful slave owner down south. Winning the case and watching the woman to return to bondage brought about his magnificent turn of conscience. Thaddeus vowed he would devote the rest of his life to the freedom of all people. Thaddeus Stevens became one of the greatest defenders of human rights of all time.
Thaddeus moved to Lancaster Pa. from Gettysburg, and he was elected to serve as our congressional representative. The reason Thaddeus was perennially elected here without fear of political opposition, was because our Lancaster area has a very deep and strong Christian tradition. As we all know then as now, the teachings of Jesus Christ are pacifism and equal and kind treatment for all of God's children. Thaddeus was elected time and time again on the Amish, Mennonite and Germanic Christian vote here, and he was elected by such huge margins that he was a sure bet - and this support from his fellow Christian Lancastrians gave him great national power.
Thaddeus was himself a social outcast. He remained a lifelong bachelor, was considered a homely man, and had a tragic limp from a childhood deformity that caused him to walk with a cane. In 1860 a deformity like Thaddeus had was seen as a touch from the devil himself. Perhaps this is why he so deeply understood others who society also marginalized. Thaddeus took for his closest confidant and business partner a mixed race black woman, Lydia Hamilton Smith. She ran his numerous business properties in Lancaster, an astounding position in that era for a black woman. In a massive breech of 1800s protocol he insisted that visiting white congressmen and dignitaries must rise to greet her and treat her with every respect that a white woman would receive. He was targeted by the KKK and written death threats left on his door were commonplace. Yet Thaddeus, our most famous Lancastrian, was undeterred.
Thaddeus became one of the most highly respected and powerful congressmen of all time. Politically to the left of Lincoln on civil rights, he pushed Lincoln to more quickly take the necessary steps to free the slaves. From Thaddeus' viewpoint, Lincoln was too slow, too middling, too politically cautious. His dying act after the slaves were freed was to pen the 14th amendment to the US Constitution in his own handwriting - giving black Americans and freed slaves equal freedoms under the law. He wrote much of it in longhand here in his Lancaster City townhouse near the square.
Stevens was a proud member of the Republican Party.
Lets be clear here ~ Thaddeus Stevens, one of the greatest Republicans in all of history, did not see the constitution as a miraculous perfect document created by founding fathers that were infallible, but as a document that required his improvements, and he made them.
Fast forward to November 2016. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania had the opportunity to be vital in the selection of the 45th President of the United States of America. Our choice 148 years after Stevens death was to vote in vast numbers for a man who has been endorsed by the KKK, the same KKK that wanted Stevens dead. Donald Trump's windfall was the Christian vote here in Lancaster County and elsewhere across our land. It is Donald Trump who now leads the party of Thaddeus Stevens. Donald Trump was opposed by virtually all of black America.
In the days after Trump's election, white students marched in the halls of a York College with signs celebrating white supremacy. In Lancaster's Franklin and Marshall College, a swastika was written in a professor's board - a pain multiplied by her family history of escaping the holocaust. The KKK who supported Trump are raising confederate flags and publicly making it known they expect favors in return for their support. Trump himself has remained coy with these groups and appeared to many to court and inflame them to an unprecedented degree. We can only imagine the sharp tongued attacks Stevens would mount in opposition to a Trump ascendancy.
There are moments that call for deep reflection. This is one. Might I suggest a stroll through the cemetery on Chestnut Street and Mulberry downtown would be a lovely place to do just that. Thaddeus has a beautiful spot there - in the only cemetery here that would bury both blacks and whites at the time of his death. It is a very good place to sit beside old Thaddeus and ask yourself just have far have we truly come?
Good words. Ox
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