March 30, 1870- Fifteenth Amendment ratified
On this day in 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, declaring that the right to vote cannot be denied because of the race or previous condition of servitude, granting African-American men the right to vote.
Tomorrow, Barack Obama will speak at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.
Thaddeus Stevens, for whom the school was named, was the most ardent leader of the abolition movement in Congress. In fact, he was so outspoken in his opposition to slavery that the Confederate Northern Army of Virginia went out its way to target his property and burned it to the ground during the Gettysburg campaign.
Stevens is widely credited as the father of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. His original version of the Fourteenth Amendment granted all citizens, including women, full civil rights. After the Civil War, he proposed giving African-Americans the right to vote immediately and offered reparations of 40 acres and a mule to all former slaves.
Stevens, a Radical Republican, also led the battle against bankers over control of the issuance of money. Stevens believed that government, not the banks, should control the currency.
Stevens was born in Vermont to a poor father who died when he was 12. He was raised by his mother Sarah (Morrill) Stevens who worked hard to provide him an education, which she believed was the only way to escape poverty.
Stevens believed that a more egalitarian world was not just a utopian dream. His own life showed that hard work and a good education could bring people out of poverty. But he also believed that diversity was something to be celebrated.
His will bestowed $50,000 to establish what is now called Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology for homeless and poor orphans. "They shall be carefully educated in the various branches of English education and all industrial trades and pursuits. No preference shall be shown on account of race or color in their admission or treatment. Neither poor Germans, Irish or Mahometan, nor any others on account their race or religion of their parents, shall be excluded. They shall be fed at the same table."
According to the Stevens website "The College continually strives to provide underprivileged individuals with opportunities and to create an environment in which individual differences are valued and nurtured." It continues to operate in the spirit of Thaddeus Stevens, as reflected in its core values of accountability, diversity, integrity, learning, growth, respect and teamwork.
For more information on Stevens, go to the online version of "Thaddeus Stevens, Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian" by Hans L. Trefousse, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London
http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=97209778
