Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/711

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STEVENS
STEVENS

mcnt to Louis Fagim's Life of Pantiiz/.i." eon- taining anecdotes relating to the British mu.-rmn. A mong his publications a iv - ( 'alalogue n|' My Eng- lish Library" (London, 1853); "Catalogue of a Li- brary of Works relating to America " ( 1 s,">4 1 : " Cata- logue Raisonneof English Bibles "( ls."il> : Ameri- can Bibliographer" (Chiswick. 1K54) ; Catalogue of American Books in the Library of the British Museum" (London. 1857); "Analytical Index to Colonial Documents of New Jersey in the State Paper Offices of England" (New' York, 1858); Catalogue of American Maps in the British Mu- seum" (London. 18511): "Catalogue of Canadian Books in the British Museum" (1859); "Catalogue of Mexican and other Spanish-American and West Indian Books in the British Museum" (1859); " Bibliotheea Americana " (1801) ; " Historical Nug- gets" (1802): "The Humboldt Library" (1803); Historical and Geographical Notes on the Earli- est Discoveries in America" (New Haven, 1809); " Bibliotheea historica" (Boston. 1870) : " Schedule of 2,000 American Historical Nuggets " (London, 1870); "Sebastian Cabot John Cabot = 0" (Bos- ton and London, 1870): "Bibliotheea geographira et historica" (part i., London, 1872); "American Books with Tails to 'Em " (1873); "Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition" (1878); "History of the Ox- ford Caxton Memorial Bible" (187's); -Photo- Bibliography" (1878); "Historical Collections" (2 vols., 1881-'6); "Who Spoils our New English Books?" (1885); and "Recollections of James Lenox " (1880). He also edited important works relating to American history, the latest being " The Dawn of British Trade to the East Indies" (Lon- don, 1880). Another son, Benjamin Franklin. bibliographer, b. in Barnet, Vt., 19 Feb., 1833. en- tered Middlebury college, but on account of feeble health did not finish his course. He went to Lon- don to join his brother Henry in 1800, engaged in the bookselling business with him, married a daugh- ter of the printer Whittingham, and after the death of his father-in-law had charge of the Chis- wick press. He is U. S. despatch agent in London, is a purchasing agent there for American libraries, and sends English publications to the United States. Mr. Stevens has edited and published " The Campaign in Virginia in 1781," containing documents relating to the controversy between Sir Henry Clinton and Lord Cornwallis (2 vols., Lon- don, 1888), and " Facsimiles of Manuscripts re- lating to America. 1773-'83 " (25 folio vols., London, 1889-'98), a work of great national im- portance, carefully indexed.


STEVENS, Thaddeus, statesman, b. in Dan- ville, Caledonia co., Vt., 4 April, 1792; d. in Wash- ington, D. C., 11 Aug., 1868. He was the child of poor parents, and was sickly and lame, but ambi- tious, and his mother toiled to secure for him an education. He entered Vermont university in 1810, and after it was closed in 1812 on account of the war he went to Dartmouth, and was graduated in 1814. He began the study of law in Peacham, Vt.. continued it while teaching an academy in York. Pa., was admitted to the bar at Bel Air, Mil., established himself in 1816 at Gettysburg, Pa., and soon gained a high reputation, and was employed in many important suits. He devoted himself exclusively to his profession till the con- test between the strict constructionists, who nomi- nated Andrew Jackson for the presidency in 1828, and the national Republicans, who afterward be- came the Whigs, drew him into politics as an ar- dent supporter of John Quincy Adams. He was elected to the legislature in 1833 and the two suc- ceeding years. By a brilliant speech in 1835, he defeated a bill to abolish the recently established common-school system of Pennsylvania. In 1836 he was a member of the State constitutional con- vention, and took an active part in its debates, but his anti-slavery principles would not permit him to sign the re- port recommend- ing an instrument that restricted the franchise to white citizens. He was a member of the leg- islature again in 1837, and in 1838, when the election dispute between the Democratic and anti-Masonic parties led to the organization of rival legislatures, he was the most prominent mem- ber of the Whig and anti-Masonic

house. In 1838 he

was appointed a canal commissioner. He was re- turned to the legislature in 1841. He gave a farm to Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson, who had written poet- ry in defence of the common schools, and thus aided him in saving them. Having incurred losses in the iron business, he removed in 1842 to Lan- caster. Pa., and for several years devoted himself to legal practice, occupying the foremost position at the bar. In 1848 and 1850 he was elected to congress as a Whig, and ardently opposed the Clay compromise measures of 1850, including the fugitive - slave law. On retiring from congress, March, 1853, he confined himself to his profession till 1858, when he was returned to congress as a Republican. From that time till his death he was one of the Republican leaders in that body, the chief advocate of emancipation, and the repre- sentative of the radical section of his party. His great oratorical powers and force of character earned for him the title, applied to William Pitt, of the "great commoner." He urged on Presi- dent Lincoln the justice and expediency of the emancipation proclamation, took the lead in all measures for arming and for enfranchising the negro, and initiated and pressed the fourteenth amendment to the Federal constitution. During the war he introduced and carried acts of confisca- tion, and after its close he advocated rigorous meas- ures in reorganizing the southern states on the basis of universal freedom. He was chairman of the committee of ways and means for three sessions. Subsequently, as chairman of the house committee on reconstruction, he reported the bill which divided the southern states into five military districts, and placed them under the rule of army officers until they should adopt constitutions that conceded suf- frage and equal rights to the blacks. In a speech that he made in congress on 24 Feb., 1868, he pro- posed the impeachment of President Johnson. He was appointed one of the committee of seven to prepare articles of impeachment, and was chairman of the board of managers that was appointed on the part of the house to conduct the trial. He was exceedingly positive in his convictions, and attacked his adversaries with bitter denunciations and sar- castic taunts, yet he was genial and witty among his friends, and was noted for his uniform, though at times impulsive, acts of charity. While skep- tical in his religious opinions, he resented slighting