Thaddeus Stevens: Radical Republican Quiz

Answer: He owned an ironworks

Thaddeus Stevens owned the Caledonia Iron Works in Gettysburg Pennsylvania. Right before the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, troops under Confederate General Jubal Early burned the iron works in retaliation for the alleged vindictiveness of Thaddeus Stevens towards the South.

Abraham Lincoln owned his own general store.

Richard Johnson ran a pub while he was Andrew Jackson's vice president.

Henry Wilson, the Republican Congressman and Senator from Massachusetts and vice president under Ulysses Grant, worked as a cobbler before entering politics.

Answer: Pennsylvania

Thaddeus Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont in April 1792. As an adult he moved to Pennsylvania and lived in Gettysburg. He represented Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives from 1849 to 1853 and again from 1859 until his death in 1868.

Answer: Andrew Johnson

Thaddeus Stevens was a fierce opponent of President Andrew Johnson and his Reconstruction policies. Stevens was the main force behind the effort by Republicans, especially radical Republicans, to impeach Johnson. Stevens and many other Radical Republicans supported impeaching and removing Johnson from office because of his opposition to their Reconstruction policies. Stevens introduced the impeachment resolutions and was on the congressional committee that drafted the impeachment articles.

The main impeachment charge against Andrew Johnson was his violating the Office of Tenure Act, which prohibited the president from removing from office any official approved with the advice and consent of the senate, unless the Senate approved that removal. Andrew Johnson was accused of violating that act by trying to remove Secretary of War Henry Stanton from office and appointing a replacement for that office.

Answer: Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee

Thaddeus Stevens was the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1861 to 1865 during the Civil War. As the chairman of the committee, which had jurisdiction over taxes and finance, Thaddeus Stevens helped create the first national income tax and first national paper currency.

Answer: Democratic Party

Thaddeus Stevens started out as a Federalist and after that party dissolved he became a strong supporter of the Anti-Masonic Party, which opposed Andrew Jackson and Stevens was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as an Anti-Mason.

Answer: Club foot

Thaddeus Stevens was born with a club foot that gave him a permanent limp. His disability may have influenced his opposition to the Masons, since they banned people with disabilities. It also may have also helped to give him his passion for egalitarianism and support of the underdogs such as slaves and the poor.

Answer: Grant them equal rights and give them their own land

Thaddeus Stevens supported making sure that Blacks and Whites had equal rights and wanted to confiscate the largest Southern plantations and divided up the land among freed slaves and Southern and Northern unionists. Stevens also helped pass a bill to enfranchise African Americans in the District of Columbia and helped to draft the 14th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing citizenship for African Americans.

As early as 1838 Thaddeus Stevens had opposed the disenfranchisement of African Americans in Pennsylvania. Stevens also strongly supported the enlistment of freed slaves and already free blacks as soldiers.

Answer: Thaddeus Kosciusko

Thaddeus Steven's was named after Thaddeus Kosciusko, a Revolutionary War hero. Thaddeus Kosciusko was a Polish noblemen who fought on the American side during the American Revolution during which he rose to the rank of Brigadier general. After the American Revolution he returned to his native Poland and after the country was partitioned by Austria, Prussia and Russia, Kosciusko led an unsuccessful uprising against the Russian occupiers. Kosciusko also strongly opposed slavery and in his will stated that the proceeds from Kosciusko's American estate be spent on freeing and educating African-American slaves. Unfortunately the will was never carried out.

Thaddeus Steven's opposition to slavery strongly mirrored Thaddeus Kosciusko's opposition to both African American Slavery and Polish Feudalism.

Answer: Prohibition

As a member of the Pennsylvania of Representatives, Thaddeus helped pass and later defended against efforts to repeal, legislation to create free public schools supported by taxes. Thaddeus Stevens argued that the new education system would save money in the long run and help to prevent the poor from being turned into a separate caste. Thaddeus Stevens also, helped to found what later became Gettysburg College.

Thaddeus Stevens was a member of the Anti-Mason Party, which opposed Masonry, which they considered an elitist conspiracy and was an opponent of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party.

As Chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, Thaddeus Stevens helped pass the Legal Tender Act of 1862, which established the first fiat currency, created by the Federal government. The goal of the act was to help finance the war.

Thaddeus Stevens did not support the prohibition of alcohol and Prohibition was not a major issue during his political career.

Answer: Tommy Lee Jones

The depiction of Thaddeus Stevens has changed greatly over the years. In the pro-South epic movie "Birth of a Nation", the villainous abolitionist congressmen who oppresses the South, Austin Houseman, is based on Thaddeus Stevens. The movie "Lincoln" has a more sympathetic portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens. He is shown as very dedicated to his principles but ruthless in his political dealings. Stevens strongly supported the abolition of slavery. He supported equal rights for all races under the law and advocated dividing the big southern plantations among freed slaves and poor whites in order the break the power of the Southern Slavocracy. The movie shows Thaddeus Stevens's efforts to get U.S. House of Representatives to approve the Thirteenth Amendment

Daniel Day Lewis played Abraham Lincoln in the movie.