"Why America Is Just Now Learning to Love Thaddeus Stevens" Topic

…, the ‘Best-Hated Man' in U.S. History

"Arguably the most important opponent of slavery in American history, Thaddeus Stevens is also the most forgotten. If the abolitionist Pennsylvania congressman is known at all today, it's thanks to Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal of Stevens in the 2012 film Lincoln, where he is the moral absolutist to Lincoln's pragmatic deal maker on the 13th Amendment—a righteous scold with vicious one-liners and a bad toupee.

Yet at the time of Stevens' death in 1868, he was one of the most revered men in the country. When he died, he was only the third American ever to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol. (Former Secretary of State Henry Clay was the first, in 1852. Lincoln was the second, in 1865.) Thousands of mourners attended his funeral. But within years, he lay in an unkempt grave in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, his legacy uncertain. Indeed, as early as the following decade, Stevens could "lay claim to being one of the best-hated men in our past," his biographer Milton Meltzer wrote in 1967…"

Smithsonian Magazine

link

Armand

Respect for Stevens and his activities has been growing since the 1970s, maybe even since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

While I don't know that I'd want to have him over to my house to take tea, I do respect him and the other front line abolitionist people who risked their own freedom (by violating the Fugitive Slave Act, they could be sent to jail) in service to their beliefs.

Grelber

Thanks

Armand

Tommy Lee Jones was excellent in that movie. The way he delivered the put downs in the script was an art form in itself!

Trajanus + 1

Armand

I want Tommy Lee Jones to portray me in any movie. ;)

Ha!…

Armand