"Thaddeus Stevens" is not a deep, in-depth history about Stevens' personal and family life. Instead, it is a history of his political life and beliefs, which is what I was more interested in anyway. Stevens was a remarkable man, especially considering the time period he lived in. He was staunchly anti-slavery, fighting for equal rights for Black Americans, and supported public education, women's rights, Native American rights, and the rights of immigrants (in particular the large Chinese population in California), among other issues. He reminds me of Bernie Saunders, fighting for what he knew was correct and needed, despite what his colleagues and others thought and supported. He, more than Lincoln and some others, showed that the Civil War was about slavery, and pushed the passing of the 13th amendment abolishing slavery. He spent his entire life doing everything he could to end slavery and promote rights for the black freedmen. He was the leader in Congress to impeach the terrible president Andrew Johnson (passed in the House, lost by one vote in the Senate).
And a quote that could be taken out of today's headlines, author Bruce Levine says Thaddeus Stevens came to recognize "...extreme economic inequality as a threat to democracy". In 1865, Stevens himself said "It is impossible that any practical equality of rights can exist where a few thousand men monopolize the whole landed property". Hmm...
At 300 pages, a short book, but very interesting and very appropriate in these troubled times. ( )

5779. Thaddeus Stevens Civil War Revolutionary, Fighter for Racial Justice, by Bruce Levine (read 5 Feb 2022) This is a 2021 biography of the Congressman from Pennsylvania who was probably the most radical person in Congress in the days right after the Civil War and I read it because earlier biographies of him were affected by the tendency to deprecate the more advanced favorable attitude to Reconstruction now in vogue. And the book does say good things about Stevens and only mentions once his supposed Black mistress and questions the evidence for such a relationship to her. The book rightly points out that Stevens' attitude to Black rights was essentially right in today's view.. He was avid in his disapproval of Andrew Johnson and was one of the House managers for his impeachment though by the time of the trial he had to be carried to the Senate for the trial. He died in August of 1868. I did not find the book much fun to read, and it spent little time on Stevens's personal life and spent much time on the issues with which he was concerned. I have read many better biographies.. ( )