In August 1868, a man lay in state in the Capitol rotunda guarded by Black soldiers and carried by Black and white pallbearers, an almost unimaginable sight for the era. He was then buried in the only Lancaster cemetery that did not restrict graves by race, with an epitaph he wrote himself declaring the equality of man before his creator.

This deep dive unpacks the messy, brilliant life of Thaddeus Stevens, the poor disabled boy from Vermont who became one of the most powerful and sarcastic politicians in American history. From financing the Civil War to authoring the 13th and 14th Amendments and managing the first presidential impeachment, his uncompromising vision laid the constitutional groundwork for the modern United States.

• Born with a clubfoot and excluded from elite circles, his early rejections forged a lifelong war against systems of exclusion, from Freemasons to slave owners
• His 1835 speech that single-handedly saved Pennsylvania’s free public school system from repeal
• How he invented modern fiat currency through the Legal Tender Act to fund the Union war effort
• His role pushing a cautious Lincoln forward and shifting the Overton window on emancipation
• The failed 40 acres land proposal and the single Senate vote that saved Andrew Johnson from removal