(1792 - 1868)
Throughout his life, Thaddeus Stevens was an innovator who had an unyielding commitment to freedom and equal opportunity for all. He is considered the father of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which ended slavery, extended equal protection to all citizens, and granted all male citizens the right to vote. Historians have recognized him as one of the most powerful parliamentarians ever to serve in Congress, and as a man who had more influence on his time than many presidents had on theirs.

Stevens was an early advocate for the Emancipation Proclamation. Later, he served as chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, and hence played a crucial role in Congressional funding for the Civil War. Following the war’s end, he was chief architect of Reconstruction.

Earlier in his career as a Pennsylvania legislator, Stevens had been key to salvaging legislation to provide for free public education in the Commonwealth – a model that other states quickly followed. His achievement is honored by a number of public schools that bear his name around the U.S. In addition, the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster, established by a bequest from Stevens’ will, stands as a living memorial to the principles he championed – equality and opportunity for all.

A skilled orator, Stevens abhorred unequal treatment of anyone – African-Americans, Native Americans, Chinese immigrants, the disabled (he himself had a clubfoot), the poor and working classes, and children – and he lobbied ceaselessly to gain the rights he believed were theirs in a free society. He fervently believed that America should be a nation where individuals could rise to their potential unencumbered by race, class, or other constraints.

While his views made him unpopular with some, he was revered by others. When he died in 1868, he was only the second national figure (Abraham Lincoln was the first) to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. His funeral drew U.S. government officials and foreign ambassadors along with common people and former slaves. Some 20,000 mourners turned out in Lancaster for his memorial service, and his constituents elected him posthumously to another term in Congress. He was buried in an interracial cemetery in Lancaster. The inscription he ordered for his tombstone bears witness to his lifelong quest for freedom and equality:

I repose in this quiet and secluded spot,
Not from any natural preference for solitude
But, finding other Cemeteries limited as to Race By Charter Rules,
I have chosen this that I might illustrate In my death
The Principles which I advocated
Through a long life:
EQUALITY OF MAN BEFORE HIS CREATOR