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Vol. 25:2 ISSN 0160-8460 Summer 1997
Editor Beverly Wilson Palmer Completes Thaddeus Stevens Project
The University of Pittsburgh Press has published the first of two volumes of the Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens, edited by Beverly Wilson Palmer and associate editor Holly Byers Ochoa. The second volume is scheduled to follow next year. A microfilm edition, The Thaddeus Stevens Papers, with accompanying guide, also edited by Palmer and Ochoa, appeared in 1994. The Stevens project has received funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission since its inception in 1991.
The volumes contain significant correspondence, legal arguments, and major speeches of this U.S. Congressman and Radical Republican leader on a range of historical topics. From his 1837 state legislature speech advocating black suffrage in Pennsylvania to the congressional Reconstruction legislation he authored, Stevens (1792-1868) insisted that African-Americans deserved the same legal protection as whites. He argued in favor of emancipation and equal pay for blacks during the Civil War, as well as equal rights for freedmen during Reconstruction. Ahead of his time in calling for equal rights, Stevens also protested California's discrimination against Chinese immigrants and advocated more humane treatment of Native Americans. During the Civil War he chaired the House Ways and Means Committee, masterminding appropriations to keep the Union armies viable. Controversies surrounding his personal and political life -- cronyism, shady business dealings, his black housekeeper -- probably kept Stevens from the cabinet appointment or senatorship he continually sought. Yet based on his fourteen years of service in the House of Representatives, Stevens left a legacy in the form of freed slaves, the Fourteenth Amendment, and increased economic opportunities for all people, regardless of race.
Unlike Charles Sumner (whose correspondence Palmer previously edited), Stevens took no pains to see that his papers were preserved, and according to one biographer, destroyed many of them. However, Palmer's extensive efforts to identify all known Stevens letters have paid off. In addition to letters and other materials in the Library of Congress, she has located individuals who possess Stevens letters, most of them in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area. Many days of research in the courthouses at Gettysburg and Lancaster have produced printed or holograph versions of Stevens' legal arguments. Palmer has searched local newspapers, such as the Adams County Sentinel and the Lancaster Examiner and Herald, to identify speeches and remarks Stevens delivered as he championed Antimasonry, equal education, and fiscal responsibility, as well as the antislavery cause.
NHPRC funding was crucial to start work on the Stevens papers. After an initial NHPRC grant of $20,000, the project received additional funds from the American Philosophical Society and research support from Pomona College. In 1992, a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities enabled Palmer to hire Ochoa (who had worked on the project on an hourly basis since 1991) on a regular three-quarter-time work schedule. Progress accelerated commensurately. With increased NHPRC funding and a second NEH grant in 1994, the editors were able to proceed on schedule with the book edition, for which private funding was received from a variety of institutions and individuals, most notably the Thaddeus Stevens State School of Technology in Lancaster and its alumni.
During the life of the project, ancillary activities complemented the editing work. In conjunction with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Palmer organized a conference to commemorate the bicentennial of Stevens' birth. Held in Lancaster in October 1992 with Eric Foner as the keynote speaker, the conference attracted over 100 people interested in Stevens and in the work of the project . In another outreach effort, Palmer and Ochoa worked with Professor Michael Birkner of Gettysburg College and students in his historical methods class to have students transcribe and annotate a series of letters to and from Stevens. To publicize the project and to help with fund raising, Palmer and Ochoa designed and distributed six newsletters. These included updates on the project, vignettes on causes Stevens espoused, and examples of editorial problems (including a major one -- Stevens' nearly illegible handwriting) encountered in the preparation of both the microfilm and book editions.
It is not unusual for editors from different projects to work closely together, sharing information on documents. In Beverly Palmer's case, she could also draw upon her experience as editor of the Charles Sumner papers. Having finished microfilm and book editions of selected correspondence of the U.S. senator in 1990, Palmer moved logically to the other side of the U.S. Capitol when she began to edit the papers of Stevens, Sumner's counterpart in the House of Representatives. Despite personality differences, the two Radical Republicans shared the same goals during the Civil War and Reconstruction. As a result, Palmer and Ochoa found that they were examining and explaining the same issues and conflicts from a different legislative angle. The previous experience served them well.
The importance of the project and of Palmer's editorial work have been recognized in the academic community. Historian Han L. Trefousse of the City University of New York writes in his recently published biography of Stevens, "My thanks are due in the first place to Beverly Wilson Palmer. . . . Her knowledge of the subject, her indefatigable search for sources, and her superb editorship cannot be emphasized too much."
What next for the two editors? They plan to leave the halls of Congress to edit the letters of another nineteenth-century reformer, Quaker women's rights activist Lucretia Mott.
Individuals interested in Stevens, Sumner, and their careers now have two well-prepared documentary publications. The 12-reel microfilm edition of the Thaddeus Stevens Papers is published by Scholarly Resources, 104 Greenhill Ave., Wilmington, DE 19805-1897. Volume 1 of the Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens is available from the University of Pittsburgh Press, 3347 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15261; Volume 2 will follow in 1998. The 85-reel microfilm edition of Charles Sumner's correspondence and its accompanying guide is available from Chadwyck-Healey, Ltd., 1101 King St., Alexandria, VA 22314. The two-volume Selected Letters of Charles Sumner is published by Northeastern University Press, 360 Huntington Ave., Boston, MA 02115.
Beverly Wilson Palmer, editor of the Stevens Papers
Thaddeus Stevens, 1792-1868. Mezzotint (1867) by John Sartain (1801-1897) after photograph by C.W. Eberman. Reproduced courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC. NPG.79.24
