Thaddeus Stevens

Emerson called his truncated roll omitting 16 Republicans who he claimed had not presented valid credentials.

Representative Thaddeus Stevens, a leading radical Republican, immediately moved that the omitted names be called.

Because some opposition members stayed loyal to the Constitution, the House narrowly voted to seat the omitted members, and the crisis passed.

Last week at Donald Trump's convention, the Speaker of the House said this.

He's talking to the levers of power.

You know, I have letters of him going back and forth with Thaddeus Stevens, that sort of thing.

He's so close and he's running for office and he's so well known and talked so strongly about.

And he's in the room where, you know, these decisions are happening or with congresspeople or that sort of thing in debates.

And that was the vision of the founders of the Republican Party.

That was the vision of the party of Lincoln, the, the creed that Lincoln brought to government that we see throughout Reconstruction, Charles Sumner, um, Thaddeus Stevens.

We see the, the embodiment of this idea manifest in the first civil rights laws passed, um, the first federal agencies that are administering what members call practical freedom, the first vote protections.

And we see it again in labor leaders pushing back on the idea across the early 20th century that the Court gets to decide whether what we have is a Constitution that focuses on the property rights of corporate power or that enables, um, the labor movement through democracy to, uh, vindicate commitments through federal laws like an eight-hour workday, uh, prohibitions on child labor, a federal income tax.

Hall, when he was in the original Continental Congress, when they were still deciding on whether to go for independence, his comment to Hancock was, you know, the people sent me here to use my best judgment, not to do what they want, but they trusted my best judgment.

And I think Thaddeus Stevens, during the Lincoln's term, who was a huge abolitionist, he said, I don't care what the people want.

He goes, they sent me here to lead, and I'm here to lead.

And what you're basically doing is you're giving them that opportunity, the people, an opportunity to have a voice.

Is that right? Lincoln is one of them as

Thaddeus Stevens.

Okay.

Something...

One of the 14th Amendment's core purposes was to enable communal self-defense when an oppressive government withdraws its protection.

As Representative Thaddeus Stevens said at the time, disarm a community and you rob them of the means of defending life.

The 14th Amendment, now so happily adopted, settles the whole question.

The Second Amendment also protects the right to train with arms.

We know that if something is... to the extreme in a movie we we would know for today but like back then laws are different and there's a lot of things that are different than they than how they are now and we can't really attest to whether lincoln was actually being smart or if he was shady being shady

you know yeah So, we have Congressman Thaddeus Stevens.

He's one of the amendment's strongest supporters.

He wants complete racial equality, but Lincoln understands that pushing too aggressively could cost the votes.

But what I was talking about with them is that the young leaders of the Anti-Masonic Party became the leading abolitionists and originators of the Republican Party.

People like Thurlow Weed, William Henry Sword, Thaddeus Stevens.

You know, Sword was Lincoln's Secretary of State 40 years later.

Stevens authored the 13th Amendment when he was a member of the House of Representatives.

You? Well, yeah.

I'm reading a book strangely titled The Mad Dreams of Thaddeus Stevens.

Thaddeus Stevens is an American hero in many ways.

Yes.

A congressman from Pennsylvania who was a lawyer in Gettysburg and then was in Lancaster.

And I'm trying to arrange to have him do a visit to St. Vincent to make a presentation.

Listen, if you do that, I want to do that in cooperation with you and have him on the air.

Because I find Thaddeus Stevens fascinating.