THE ABOLITION HYPOTHESIS: THADDEUS STEVENS, RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION, AND THE OUTER LIMITS OF AMERICAN LIBERALISM

On August 11, 1868, Thaddeus Stevens died. He left behind him an unfinished and unjust nation. In his 76 years, he attempted to articulate a vision of American society as a raceblind meritocracy where the rights of individual citizens were safeguarded by a state they directed in common regardless of race, class, or gender. This thesis traces the intellectual path Stevens blazed through politics, economics, and religion as he tried to craft a version of American liberalism equal to the fundamental problems of racism and economic inequality exposed by the Civil War, also treating his unorthodox personal and religious lives. It concludes with a survey of radical remembrances and reassessments of Stevens by activists seeking to follow in his footsteps and remold American society between the counter-revolution of 1877 and the appearance of Eric Foner's revisionist opus Reconstruction: Americas Unfinished Revolution.