First published 2021
Bruce Levine examines Thaddeus Stevens, the Pennsylvania congressman who saw the Civil War as America's second revolution. Stevens fought slavery in Congress years before Lincoln embraced abolition, leading the Republican Party's radical wing with anti-slavery policies that his colleagues initially rejected. He pushed to welcome Black men into Union armies, a decision that became vital to Northern victory. Stevens viewed the war as a chance to transform America into a true multiracial democracy. During Reconstruction, he demanded equal civil and political rights for Black Americans, ideas that became the 14th and 15th amendments. Stevens also proposed more extreme measures his fellow congressmen would never accept, including seizing large plantations and redistributing the land to formerly enslaved people. Levine reveals how Stevens pushed both his party and the nation toward equality while championing ideas too radical for his time. This biography recovers a forgotten champion of racial justice and shows how one visionary congressman fought to remake America.
Genres: biography, american-civil-war, 20th-century, political-science, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: political-drama, visionary-hero
Setting: Pennsylvania, America
Period: Civil War, Reconstruction
320 pages · Hardcover · Simon & Schuster