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.
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.
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