{"id":1038,"date":"2026-09-10T09:10:05","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1038"},"modified":"2026-09-10T09:10:05","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T09:10:05","slug":"lincoln-thaddeus-stevens-and-why-american-politics-still-needs-radicals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1038","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Lincoln,&#8217; Thaddeus Stevens and Why American Politics Still Needs Radicals"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<div>\n<div>\n<article>\n<header>\n<div>\n<ul><li>Politics<\/li><li>December 10, 2012<\/li><\/ul><h1>\u2018Lincoln,\u2019 Thaddeus Stevens and Why American Politics Still Needs Radicals<\/h1><h1>\u2018Lincoln,\u2019 Thaddeus Stevens and Why American Politics Still Needs Radicals<\/h1><h2><p>Both <i>Lincoln\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0<em>The Nation<\/em>\u2019s 1860s editors underestimated radicals\u2019 contributions to abolitionism.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1035\">Can Senator Jon Ossoff Hold On to His Seat?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<section>\n<time>December 10, 2012<\/time>\n<div>\n<p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1037\" height=\"363\" src=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/12abf7fbd442f9b8f05d93343ac95113.jpg\" width=\"615\" srcset=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/12abf7fbd442f9b8f05d93343ac95113.jpg 615w, https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/12abf7fbd442f9b8f05d93343ac95113-300x177.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 615px) 100vw, 615px\" \/><\/figure>\n<br\/>\n<em>Tommy Lee Jones stars as Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens in this scene from director Steven Spielberg\u2019s drama \u201cLincoln\u201d from DreamWorks Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox. \u00a9 DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC. All Rights Reserved.<\/em><br\/>\n\t\u2002<br\/>\n\tThe most politically radical character in Steven Spielberg\u2019s <em>Lincoln<\/em> is also, not accidentally, the most entertaining. A reliable source of comic relief in a film weighed down with false notes of levity, Thaddeus Stevens (played expertly and judiciously by Tommy Lee Jones) is an unrepentantly radical congressman from Pennsylvania whose fierce commitment to racial equality is surpassed only by his commitment to rhetorically eviscerating those with a different opinion. \u201cYou fatuous nincompoop,\u201d he roars at one pro-slavery Democrat. \u201cYou insult God!\u201d\t\t\t\t\n<p>In some ways, <em>Lincoln <\/em>portrays Stevens as a man of great personal integrity and admirable core principles. He is, of course, the only character\u2014the titular hero included\u2014in a film about the political battle to pass the Thirteenth Amendment who comes close to advocating the modern consensus opinion on civil rights. And by depicting Stevens\u2019s open-secret relationship with Lydia Hamilton Smith, his black housekeeper\u2014friends referred to her, without derision, as \u201cMrs. Stevens\u201d\u2014the film accurately presents the congressman\u2019s views on slavery and civil rights as the product of a lifelong crusade, one less political than personal.\n<p>But there\u2019s more to the story, as it is this aspect of Stevens that supposedly prevents the Great Emancipator from ending slavery. It\u2019s only when the radical finally compromises his deepest principles that he wins the full applause of Spielberg and John Williams, composer of the film\u2019s predictably saccharine score\u2014and, therefore, that of the audience. Before his highly anticipated speech supporting the Thirteenth Amendment, fellow Republicans implore Stevens to drop all references to \u201cequality of the races\u201d in favor of the more conservative and popular formulation \u201cequality before the law.\u201d Whereas the former scandalously implied broader social consequences, the more narrow formulation would have only codified egalitarianism, allowing racists to preserve de facto segregation, as they ably did for another century and more. Had Stevens, in his speech during the amendment fight, declared his belief in racial equality, he would have scared away conservative votes and destroyed Spielberg\u2019s plans for an implausibly climactic roll call. We sense Stevens\u2019s anger while forcing himself to explicitly deny his belief in racial equality under questioning from the absurd (not to mention bizarrely British-sounding) Representative Fernando Wood of New York. But Spielberg and screenwriter (and <em>Nation<\/em> editorial board member) Tony Kushner compensate for that anger in every way cinematically possible, indicating to the audience that this is a great moment for Stevens, for black Americans and\u2014hooray!\u2014for the country.\n<p>\u201cOpinion leaders\u201d seem to have received the message well. To his credit, the iniquitous <em>Washington Post <\/em>columnist Michael Gerson calls this \u201ca disturbing cinematic moment,\u201d though not without suggesting that a congressional screening of <em>Lincoln<\/em> might produce \u201ca greater appreciation for flexibility and compromise.\u201d\n<section>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h2>Popular<\/h2>\n<span><span>&#8220;swipe left below to view more authors&#8221;<\/span>Swipe \u2192<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>The German Far Right\u2019s Shocking Victory in Saxony-Anhalt Is a Warning for Germany<\/span>\n\n                The German Far Right\u2019s Shocking Victory in Saxony-Anhalt Is a Warning for Germany\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nPaul Hockenos <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>The Left Can Win in Small Cities. David Morales Is Showing How.<\/span>\n\n                The Left Can Win in Small Cities. David Morales Is Showing How.\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nAaron Regunberg <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>Can Senator Jon Ossoff Hold On to His Seat?<\/span>\n\n                Can Senator Jon Ossoff Hold On to His Seat?\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nFeature\n<span>\n                            \/\n                        <\/span>\nJoan Walsh <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>\n<div>\n<h3>\n<span>Kaepernick and the Movement He Inspired<\/span>\n\n                Kaepernick and the Movement He Inspired\n            \n<\/h3>\n<p>\nDave Zirin <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p>But as Aaron Bady writes in an excellent <em>Jacobin<\/em> essay, <em>Lincoln<\/em>\u2019s portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens is \u201cthe clearest demonstration of how the movie disdains and diminishes the importance of principled radicalism.\u201d Despite the inarguable fact that the Thirteenth Amendment was made possible by principled Americans like Stevens, it is only when those principles are temporarily abandoned, or at least modified, that the film allows Stevens even a fraction of the hero-worship ritually granted to compulsive grand bargainers like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and our own contemporary compromiser-in-chief.\n<p>* * *\n<p>Curious about Spielberg and Kushner\u2019s portrayal of Thaddeus Stevens, I delved into <em>The Nation<\/em>\u2019s archives, assuming that a magazine famously founded by abolitionists in 1865 (the same year as the events depicted in <em>Lincoln<\/em>) would have a less ambiguously sympathetic account of the man.\n<p>\u201cMany people will be ready to believe that a person who uses such language in a debate is hardly in a fit state of mind to legislate,\u201d reads an editorial from late December 1865, which also calls Stevens\u2019s rhetoric \u201cstrong meat for babes.\u201d Of Stevens\u2019s proposal for readmission of the rebellious states into the Union, a June 1866 article says, \u201cThe measure is really more moderate and fair than could have been expected from its author.\u201d But these are effusive compliments when compared to the pitiless denunciations in the issue dated August 20, 1868, which contains an early example of that persistent <em>Nation <\/em>tradition\u2014the wholly unsentimental remembrance for the recently dead.\n<p>The writers call Stevens a \u201cmaster\u201d who \u201curged Mr. Lincoln into the issue of the emancipation proclamation,\u201d but call this \u201cessentially a destructive agitation,\u201d as it entailed \u201cthe breaking down of old prejudices, of well-established social and political theories.\u201d When it came time for reconstruction, Stevens \u201cfailed utterly.\u201d <em>The Nation<\/em>\u2019s writers chastise him for failing to consider \u201cthe nature of the motives by which the mass of men are guided in the ordinary transactions of life,\u201d and criticize his policy proposals\u2014such as \u201cmild confiscation,\u201d which proposed to use rebel land seizures to provide farms for freed slaves and to pay down the national debt\u2014as displaying \u201cmental defects,\u201d including \u201ca total want of imagination\u201d and an \u201cinability to digest history.\u201d\n<p>That these comments are couched within several paragraphs of unparalleled praise makes them even more interesting. While the obituary criticizes Stevens\u2019s aggressiveness and overblown rhetoric, it also praises \u201cthe extraordinary kindliness of his nature\u201d and his \u201calmost unequalled ardor and enthusiasm.\u201d It says \u201ca manlier man never sat in the House,\u201d and calls him that body\u2019s \u201creadiest and shrewdest tactician.\u201d\n<blockquote>\n<p>He had what Congressmen so often want\u2014a conscience of his own, opinions of his own, and a will of his own, and he never flinched from the duty of asserting them. When one sees the eagerness of hosts of his colleagues to repudiate their own individuality, their readiness to take up the last popular cry, the neutral tint of all that they say and do, and the utter want of basis either in their mind or temperament for much of their political course, one\u2019s admiration for Stevens, who never was cowed, and never retreated, and never considered what was \u201csafe,\u201d can hardly help being hearty.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This, remember, for a man with \u201cmental defects.\u201d\n<p>It would be ridiculous to suggest that Stevens\u2019s momentary elision of his support for full racial equality\u2014as opposed to merely abolition of slavery\u2014during the Thirteenth Amendment debate was unjustified, or that his proposals for Reconstruction did not go a step beyond the practicable. It would be absurd to demand self-defeating absolutism of someone whose whole life had been directed towards, as his character in the film says, ensuring that \u201cthe Constitution\u2019s first and only mention of slavery is its abolition.\u201d But it is also unfair to reject radical means, as <em>The Nation<\/em> did, while applauding radical ends\u2014indeed, adopting them as one\u2019s own\u2014only once they have been made safe by the advance of years and progress. And it is fundamentally reactionary to celebrate, as <em>Lincoln<\/em> does, a man of such strong progressive principles only in the moment when he was forced to compromise with political reality.\n<p><em>The Nation<\/em>\u2019s editorials criticize Stevens\u2019s aggressiveness and impracticality\u2014a charge Spielberg and Kushner essentially mimic, and one that liberals have continued to direct at radicals to this day. (It is precisely that kind of equivocation that led Wendell Phillips, a radical reconstructionist like Stevens, to say of <em>The Nation<\/em>: \u201cLook at this new journal\u2026. How uncertain its sound! How timid, vacillating, noncommittal its policy!\u201d) And yet, in their effusive praise of his character and the admission that Stevens \u201cdid good service in pushing Congress to the position which it finally took up\u201d on Reconstruction, they reveal the contradiction: while radicals are essentially the authors of American progress, credit always goes to the compromising moderates. Such tension is inherent in <em>Lincoln <\/em>and in contemporary America\u2019s general lack of appreciation for radicals, past and present, who have pushed the country towards those positions it finally, despite immense opposition, takes up.\n<p>* * *\n<p>There are memorials to both Lincoln and his conservative-leaning Secretary of State, William Seward, within a few blocks of <em>The Nation<\/em> office, while one must venture to the grounds of a technical college named after Thaddeus Stevens, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to find the only statue of him in this world. (And to find a memorial for the efforts of all those ordinary Americans\u2014especially women and escaped slaves\u2014who brought abolitionism to the country\u2019s attention, as <em>Nation <\/em>editorial board member Eric Foner has written, one would have to build it oneself.)\n<p>If we must have heroes, Thaddeus Stevens is one precisely because he furthered the cause of justice while refusing to submit himself, his principles or his proposals to the \u201cmodifications\u201d (<em>The Nation<\/em>\u2019s term) that would have been required for history to regard him as such. Lincoln, by contrast, in the film and in life, always had one eye on posterity. \u201cWe are stepped out upon the world stage now,\u201d Daniel Day-Lewis\u2019s Lincoln thunders at a cabinet meeting, \u201cwith the fate of human dignity in our hands.\u201d\n<p>(And then there is the chutzpah of Mary Todd Lincoln, who castigates Stevens at a state dinner: \u201cHow the people love my husband. They flock to see him by the thousands. They will never love you as they love my husband. How hard for you to know that. But how important to remember it.\u201d Hooray again!\u2014for\u2026 what?)\n<p>Most viewers see in <em>Lincoln<\/em> a lesson for the contemporary Washington crowd to set aside their differences and just get along. Doris Kearns Goodwin called the parallels between the Thirteenth Amendment fight and the negotiations over the upcoming fiscal cliff downright \u201ceerie,\u201d while Spielberg modestly suggested that releasing the movie after a contentious election season might have a \u201csoothing or even healing effect.\u201d Ross Douthat, responding to Bady\u2019s <em>Jacobin <\/em>essay, argues that the film shows how \u201ca moderate and a radical can work together\u2014 if the moderate is willing to be more intransigent than usual, and the radical is willing to not say <em>everything<\/em> that\u2019s on his mind.\u201d That this supposed \u201charmony\u201d makes <em>Lincoln <\/em>\u201ca crowdpleasing film,\u201d as Douthat writes, I do not dispute.\n<p>David Brooks, to whose sniffling centrism <em>Lincoln<\/em> might as well be dedicated, believes the film to be a reminder of \u201cwhy we love politics,\u201d and urges young people to get involved. \u201cYou can end slavery, open opportunity and fight poverty,\u201d Brooks writes. \u201cBut you can achieve these things only if you are willing to stain your own character in order to serve others\u2014if you are willing to bamboozle, trim, compromise and be slippery and hypocritical.\u201d Ah, yes, that\u2019s what ails Washington: too few slippery bamboozlers.\n<p>If Barack Obama is to be Abraham Lincoln, someone must be Thaddeus Stevens. After all, it was people like him who made the Thirteenth Amendment possible. The real lesson of the events depicted in <em>Lincoln <\/em>was described by the editors of <em>The Nation<\/em> nearly a century and a half ago:\n<blockquote>\n<p>Any young politician who proposes to get on in the world by being a cowardly sneak, as thousands of young politicians do, cannot help profiting by the study of [Stevens\u2019s] life. He will see by it that, even under the shadow of an irresistible popular will, the road to the highest success lies through courage and self-assertion, and not through base compliance.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cThe highest success\u201d\u2014not easily captured in the op-ed pages, or on the big screen.\n\t<\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1033\">\u201cGray Money\u201d Is Fueling a Bipartisan Arms Race for Control of Congress<\/a><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/p><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<footer>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\n                Submit a correction\n            \n<\/li>\n<li>\n\n                Send a letter to the editor\n            \n<\/li>\n<li>\n\n                Reprints &amp; permissions\n            \n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>\n<p><span> Richard Kreitner<svg>\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>Richard Kreitner is a contributing writer and the author of <em>Break It Up: Secession, Division, and the Secret History of America\u2019s Imperfect Union<\/em>. His writings are at richardkreitner.com.<\/p><p>Read more <a href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=1031\">Dolly Parton Understood That Working 9 to 5 Doesn\u2019t Really Pay the Bills in Today\u2019s America<\/a><\/p><br\/>\n<\/div>\n<input\/>\n<input\/>\n<\/footer>\n<\/article>\n\n\n\nAd Policy\n<!-- <a class=\"inifiniteLoader\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/new_infi_loader.gif\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a> -->\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&#8216;Lincoln,&#8217; 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