Quotes from Thaddeus Stevens

The freedom of a government does not depend on the quality of its laws, but upon the power that has the right to create them.

No government can be free that does not allow all its citizens to participate in the formation and execution of her laws.

There can be no fanatics in the cause of genuine liberty. Fanaticism is excessive zeal. There may be, and have been fanatics in false religion; in the bloody religions of the heathen.

The whole fabric of southern society must be changed, and never can it be done if this opportunity is lost. Without this, this government can never be, as it never has been, a true republic.

Strip the proud nobility of their bloated estates, reduce them to a level with plain republicans, send forth to labor, and teach their children to enter the workshops or handle the plow, and you will thus humble proud traitors.

I answer, because I live among men and not among angels.

Though the President is Commander-in-Chief, Congress is his commander; and, God willing, he shall obey. He and his minions shall learn that this is not a Government of kings and satraps, but a Government of the people, and that Congress is the people.

I repose in this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited as to race, by charter rules, I have chosen this that I might illustrate in my death the principles which I advocated through a long life, equality of man before his Creator.

Do you inquire why, holding these views and possessing some will of my own, i accept so imperfect a proposition? I answer, because I live among men and not among angels.

Nothing is as prolix as ignorance.

kill trhe beast before it kills you

I care not whether the soldiers are of Milesian, Teutonic, African or Angelo-Saxon descent. I despise the principle that make a difference between them in the hour of battle and of death.

I don't hold with equality in all things only with equality before the law and nothing more.

I wished that I were the owner of every southern slave, that I might cast off the shackles from their limbs, and witness the rapture which would excite them in the first dance of their freedom.

The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the conquerer.