Thaddeus Stevens was a noted abolitionist politician from Pennsylvania. While both Stevens and Douglass fought for emancipation, each man did so in their own realm of influence. The two had a minor knowledge with each other but not one that could be considered friendly or all that collaborative. After emancipation, Thaddeus Stevens called for caution on pressing the issue of black suffrage, something Douglass could not abide. This caused Douglass to sour on Stevens’ reputation.
“This degeneracy in the Republican party began to manifest itself when the voices of Sumner, Wade, Morton, Conkling, Stevens, and Logan were no longer controlling in its councils; when Morton was laughed at for “waving the bloody shirt” and for exposing the bloody crimes and outrages against the Republican voters of the South”[1]
Thaddeus Stevens died on August 11, 1868 at the age of 76. He was buried in Shreiners Cemetery in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Exact Grave GPS coordinates: 40.040032, -76.310541
[1] Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Boston: De Wolfe & Fiske Co., 1892), 671.
The Graves of Frederick Douglass 