Transcribed by Natalie E. Byars and reverse-order proofed by Jeremy Snyder, Furman University, from the Thaddeus Stevens Papers.
No man ever stood with a more unswerving dedication to the fundamental belief of equal rights of all men under the law than Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. In fact, Stevens consistently announced his idea of the equal rights Republican doctrine in all political spheres, even when elections neared and stating such a doctrine may prove disadvantageous1. Stevens distrusted the Confederate rebels to re-enter Congress and properly refashion the nation during this critical period of Reconstruction, so he proposed to pass black suffrage and civil rights allowances before the rebel states re-admission. During 1866, Stevens supported and pushed for the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, and he concluded by successfully passing both the Civil Rights Bill over President Johnson's veto and a revised Freedmen's Bureau Bill; however, his drive for black suffrage failed miserably2. Stevens vehemently abhorred the slave system and whenever an opportunity presented itself he would purchase slaves and grant them immediate freedom2. Although his campaign for black suffrage lacked his political constituents' positive reception to the notion, Stevens proposed an amendment that did not impose black suffrage on Southern states, but if these states refused black suffrage admission then reduced representation would ensue until suffrage was granted1. The following letter illustrates Stevens' relentless public promotion of black suffrage. Stevens realized that the Civil Rights Act along with the Freedman's Bureau lacked an apparatus to enforce these measures3. During the mid-nineteenth century and onward, a distinction must be made between civil and political rights, for the effectiveness of legislation demands question when the measures are ignored by a war-torn Southern society and a proportion of indifferent Northerners. The black suffrage question commands the media at this time to address American public servants, thereby possibly altering the policies of Congress because of the intense focus on this issue.
Thaddeus Stevens writes, in answer to a correspondent who asks his views upon the suffrage question, as follows:
Washington, D.C., Jan. 6, 1868.
DEAR SIR: So far as I took any position with regard to negro suffrage, it was and is that universal suffrage is an inalienable right, and that since the amendment to the Constitution, to deprive the negroes of it would be a violation of the Constitution as well as of a natural right. True, I [unclear: deemed] the hastening of the bestowal of that franchise as very essential to the welfare of the nation, because without it I believe that the government will pass into the hands of rebels and their friends, and that such an event would be disastrous to the whole country.
With universal suffrage, I believe the true men of the nation can maintain their position. Without it, whether that suffrage be impartial, or in any way qualified, I look upon this Republic as likely to relapse into an oligarchy, which will be ruled by coarse copperheadism* and proud [unclear: conservatism].
I have never insisted that the franchise should be unjustly regulated so as to secure a Republican ascendancy; but I have insisted, and do insist, that there can be no unjust regulation of that franchise which will give to any other party the power if the Republicans are true to themselves, and do not fall into their usual vice of cowardice. The Republicans, once beaten into a minority by the force of negro prejudice will never again obtain the majority, and the nation will become a despotism.
1Woodburn, James Albert. The Life of Thaddeus Stevens. The Bobbs-Merrill Co.: Indianapolis, 1913.
2Malone, Dumas. Dictionary of American Biography. Charles Scribner's Sons: New York, 1935.
3Hyman, Harold Melvin. The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction. The Bobbs-Merrill Co.: New York, 1967.
(benson/HST41/Purple/stevens3.htm)