STEVENS, Thaddeus, statesman, born in Danville, Caledonia County, Vermont, 4 April, 1792; died in Washington, D. C., 11 August, 1868. He was the child of poor parents, and was sickly and lame, but ambitious, and his mother toiled to secure for him an education. He entered Vermont university in 1810, and after it was closed in 1812 on account of the war he went to Dartmouth, and was graduated in 1814. He began the study of law in Peacham, Vermont, continued it while teaching an academy in York, Pennsylvania, was admitted to the bar at Bel Air, Maryland, established himself in 1816 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and soon gained a high reputation, and was employed in many important suits. He devoted himself exclusively to his profession till the contest between the strict constructionists, who nominated Andrew Jackson for the presidency in 1828, and the national Republicans, who afterward became the Whigs, drew him into politics as an ardent supporter of John Quincy Adams. He was elected to the legislature in 1833 and the two succeeding years. By a brilliant speech in 1835, he defeated a bill to abolish the recently established common-school system of Pennsylvania. In 1836 he was a member of the State constitutional convention, and took an active part in its debates, but his anti-slavery principles would not permit him to sign the report recommending an instrument that restricted the franchise to white citizens. He was a member of the legislature again in 1837, and in 1838, when the election dispute between the Democratic and anti-Masonic parties led to the organization of rival legislatures, he was the most prominent member of the Whig and anti-Masonic house, in 1838 he was appointed a canal commissioner. He was returned to the legislature in 1841. He gave a farm to Mrs. Lydia Jane Pierson, who had written poetry in defence of the common schools, and thus aided him in saving them. Having incurred losses in the iron business, he removed in 1842 to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and for several years devoted himself to legal practice, occupying the foremost position at the bar. In 1848 and 1850 he was elected to congress as a Whig, and ardently opposed the Clay compromise measures of 1850, including the fugitive-slave law. On retiring from congress, March, 1853, he confined himself to his profession till 1858, when he was returned to congress as a Republican. From that time till his death he was one of the Republican leaders in that body, the chief advocate of emancipation, and the representative of the radical section of his party. His great oratorical powers and force of character earned for him the title, applied to William Pitt, of the "great commoner." He urged on President Lincoln the justice and expediency of the emancipation proclamation, took the lead in all measures for arming and for enfranchising the negro, and initiated and pressed the fourteenth amendment to the Federal constitution. During the war he introduced and carried acts of confiscation, and after its close he advocated rigorous measures in reorganizing the southern states on the basis of universal freedom. He was chairman of the committee of ways and means for three sessions. Subsequently, as chairman of the house committee on reconstruction, he reported the bill which divided the southern states into five military districts, and placed them under the rule of army officers until they should adopt constitutions that conceded suffrage and equal rights to the blacks. In a speech that he made in congress on 24 February, 1868, he proposed the impeachment of President Johnson. He was appointed one of the committee of seven to prepare articles of impeachment, and was chairman of, the board of managers that was appointed on the part of the house to conduct the trial. He was exceedingly positive in his convictions, and attacked his adversaries with bitter denunciations and sarcastic taunts, yet he was genial and witty among his friends, and was noted for his uniform, though at times impulsive, acts of charity. While skeptical in his religious opinions, he resented slighting remarks regarding the Christian faith as an insult to the memory of his devout mother, whom he venerated. The degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by the University of Vermont in 1867. He chose to be buried in a private cemetery, explaining in the epitaph that he prepared for his tomb that the public cemeteries were limited by their charter-rules to the white race, and that he preferred to illustrate in his death the principle that he had advocated through his life of "equality of man before his Creator." The tomb is in a large lot in Lancaster, which he left as a burial-place for those who cannot afford to pay for their graves. He left a part of his estate to found an orphan asylum in Lancaster, to be open to both white and colored children.--His nephew, Thad-deus Morrel, physician, born in Indianapolis, Indiana, 29 August, 1830; died there, 8 November, 1885, studied medicine at the Indiana central medical college and at Jefferson college, Philadelphia, obtained his degree of M. D. in 1853, and first settled at Fairland, Indiana, but removed to Indianapolis. Having made a special study of medical chemistry, he was strongly attached to the idea of state medicine, and labored unceasingly until a public board of health was established in Indiana, of which he was the first secretary. He was professor of medical jurisprudence and toxicology in the Indiana medical college and in the College of physicians and surgeons at Indianapolis, edited for some time the "Indiana Journal of Medicine," and was afterward assistant editor of the "Lancet and Observer," published in Cincinnati, Ohio. His publications include brochures "Expert Testimony," "State Boards of Health," and "Automatic Filtration."