title: Max Richter

text: "Sleep" was performed for its first outdoor performance and largest performance to-date in Los Angeles, CA on 27–28 July and 28–29 July 2018. The performance took place in Grand Park, opposite Los Angeles Music Center. Each performance had 560 beds and was timed so the final movement, "Dream 0 (till break of day)" would occur at dawn. Richter played with members of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble.


title: Max Richter

text: In September 2018 it was played in the Antwerp cathedral for an audience of 400 which were provided with beds for the night. In August 2019 it was performed in Helsinki, as part of the Helsinki Festival, in the tent arena, with half the audience in two-person tents.


title: Max Richter

text: "I think of it as a piece of protest music," Richter has said. "It’s protest music against this sort of very super industrialised, intense, mechanised way of living right now. It’s a political work in that sense. It’s a call to arms to stop what we’re doing.


title: Max Richter

text: "Three Worlds: Music From Woolf Works" is Max Richter’s eighth album, released in January 2017. The music is taken from the score Richter composed for the ballet "Woolf Works" in collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor at the Royal Opera House in London, which follows a three-part structure offering evocations of three books by Virginia Woolf ("Mrs Dalloway", "", and "The Waves"). The album features classical and electronic sound as well as an original voice recording of Woolf herself.


title: Max Richter

text: Richter's "Voices" is inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and features an  'upside down' orchestra, a concept he developed to reflect his dismay of post-truth politics in the 21st century. The album contains readings of the declaration by Eleanor Roosevelt and actress Kiki Layne, with a further 70 readings crowd-sourced from around the world.


title: Max Richter

text: The opening piece on the album was played by Yo-Yo Ma at his concert "A New Equilibrium" honouring the 75th anniversary of the UN's creation.


title: Max Richter

text: On 6 August 2021, the new album "Exiles" was released. The album was recorded in 2019, in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, with the collaboration of a conductor Kristjan Järvi and the Baltic Sea Philharmonic. The "Exiles" also includes extended versions of previously released works such as "The Haunted Ocean", "Infra 5", "Flowers Of Herself", "On The Nature Of Daylight" and "Sunlight". Max Richter describes the "Exile" album as a serious work because of its theme of the subject, which has an emotional texture.


title: Max Richter

text: Richter has created numerous film and television soundtracks over the years. He rose to prominence with his score to Ari Folman's Golden Globe-winning film "Waltz with Bashir" in 2007, in which he supplanted a standard orchestral soundtrack with synth-based sounds and winning him the European Film Award for Best Composer. He also scored the independent feature film "Henry May Long", starring Randy Sharp and Brian Barnhart, in 2008, and wrote the music for Feo Aladag's film "Die Fremde" (with additional music by Stéphane Moucha).


title: Max Richter

text: In 2010, Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth" was remixed with Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight" for the Martin Scorsese film "Shutter Island". In July 2010, "On the Nature of Daylight" and "Vladimir's Blues" were featured throughout the BBC Two two-part drama "Dive", which was co-written by BAFTA-winning Dominic Savage and Simon Stevens. "On the Nature of Daylight" was also featured in an episode of HBO's television series "Luck". Four tracks—"Europe, After the Rain", "The Twins (Prague)", "Fragment", and "Embers"—were used in the six-part 2005 BBC documentary "Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution" produced by Laurence Rees. Richter also wrote the soundtrack to Peter Richardson's documentary, "How to Die in Oregon", and the score to "Impardonnables" (2011) directed by André Téchiné.


title: Max Richter

text: An excerpt of the song "Sarajevo" from his 2002 album "Memoryhouse" was used in the international trailer for the Ridley Scott film "Prometheus". The track "November", from the same album, was featured in the international trailer for Terrence Malick's 2012 film, "To the Wonder", and in the trailer for Clint Eastwood's 2011 film, "J. Edgar". Films featuring Richter's music released in 2011 include French drama "Sarah's Key" by Gilles Paquet-Brenner and David MacKenzie's romantic thriller "Perfect Sense". In 2012 he composed the scores for Henry Alex Rubin's "Disconnect" and Cate Shortland's Australian-German war thriller "Lore". Richter again collaborated with Folman on "The Congress", which was released in 2013.


title: Max Richter

text: Richter composed the original soundtrack for the HBO series "The Leftovers", created by Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta, which was premiered in June 2014. Some of these compositions are included in the albums "Memoryhouse" and "The Blue Notebooks". He also composed the score for the WW1 feature film "Testament of Youth" in 2014.


title: Max Richter

text: In 2016, Richter composed the score to "Nosedive", an episode of Charlie Brooker's "Black Mirror". Also that year, he scored Luke Scott's debut feature "Morgan" and the political thriller "Miss Sloane", while his piece "On the Nature of Daylight" opened and closed Denis Villeneuve's film "Arrival". "On the Nature Of Daylight" also closes episode 7 of "Castle Rock", "The Queen". He composed all the music in BBC One's drama "Taboo" which was broadcast in January and February 2017.


title: Max Richter

text: In 2017, documentary film maker Nancy Buirski used the track combining Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth" with Richter's "On The Nature of Daylight", first heard in "Shutter Island", in her film "The Rape of Recy Taylor".


title: Max Richter

text: In December 2017, an excerpt of "" was used in "The Crown" season 2 as the theme for Princess Margaret's (Vanessa Kirby) turbulent courtship with photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones (Matthew Goode).


title: Max Richter

text: In 2018, Richter composed music for the films "Hostiles" by Scott Cooper starring Christian Bale and Rosamund Pike, "White Boy Rick" starring Matthew McConaughey, the German film "Never Look Away", and "Mary Queen of Scots" starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. He also composed music for the mini-series "My Brilliant Friend" on HBO.


title: Max Richter

text: In 2019, Richter scored the film "Ad Astra" starring Brad Pitt with additional music by Nils Frahm and Lorne Balfe. An excerpt of his rendition of "Dona nobis pacem" was used for the fifth season of the BBC series "Peaky Blinders" created by Steven Knight.


title: Max Richter

text: In 2021, his piece "On The Nature of Daylight" was, yet again, used in a TV show The Handmaid's Tale for a scene in season 4, episode 9. Interestingly, three years earlier Elisabeth Moss, the lead actress of the show, starred in Richter's music video of the same piece. As a director of the episode, as well as the star, Moss specifically chose the piece.


title: Max Richter

text: Richter wrote the score to "Infra" as part of a Royal Ballet-commissioned collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie. The production was staged at the Royal Opera House in London in 2008. In 2011, Richter composed a chamber opera based on neuroscientist David Eagleman's book "". The opera was choreographed by Wayne McGregor and premiered at the Royal Opera House Linbury Studio Theatre in 2012. The piece received positive reviews, with London's Evening Standard saying "[it] fits together rather beautifully". Their collaboration continued in April 2014 with Wayne McGregor's 'Kairos'; a ballet set to Richter's recomposition of the Four Seasons and part of a collaborative program involving three different choreographers titled 'Notations' with Ballett Zürich. In 2015 Richter and McGregor collaborated again on a new full-length ballet, "Woolf Works", inspired by three novels by Virginia Woolf.


title: Max Richter

text: Crystal Pite has also choreographed a ballet to Richter's "Vivaldi Recomposed", titled "The Seasons' Canon", which premiered at the Opera National de Paris in 2016. Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot choreographed a piece to Richter's "Exiles" for the Nederlands Dans Theater.


title: Max Richter

text: In 2012/13, Richter contributed music to The National Theatre of Scotland's production of "Macbeth", starring Alan Cumming. The play opened at New York's Lincoln Centre and subsequently moved to Broadway. The company had previously used Richter's "Last Days" in their acclaimed production of "Black Watch".


title: Max Richter

text: Richter was called upon again by past collaborator Wayne McGregor to score and produce an adaptation of Margaret Atwood's MaddAddam trilogy commissioned by the National Ballet of Canada and The Royal Ballet in 2022, wherein his orchestral and electronically produced compositions, both alone and together, help to realize Atwood's dystopian vision.


title: Max Richter

text: In 2010, Richter's soundscape "The Anthropocene" formed part of Darren Almond's film installation at the White Cube gallery in London. The composer has also collaborated with digital art collective Random International on two projects, contributing scores to the installations "Future Self" (2012), staged at the MADE space in Berlin, and "Rain Room" (2012/13) at London's Barbican Centre and MOMA, in New York.


title: Max Richter

text: Max Richter lives in Oxfordshire with his partner Yulia Mahr, two black Labradors called Haku and Evie, and a cat called Kiki. They have previously lived in Edinburgh and Berlin.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Thaddeus Stevens (April 4, 1792August 11, 1868) was a member of the United States House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, one of the leaders of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party during the 1860s. A fierce opponent of slavery and discrimination against black Americans, Stevens sought to secure their rights during Reconstruction, leading the opposition to U.S. President Andrew Johnson. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee during the American Civil War, he played a leading role, focusing his attention on defeating the Confederacy, financing the war with new taxes and borrowing, crushing the power of slave owners, ending slavery, and securing equal rights for the freedmen.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was born in rural Vermont, in poverty, and with a club foot, which left him with a permanent limp. He moved to Pennsylvania as a young man and quickly became a successful lawyer in Gettysburg. He interested himself in municipal affairs and then in politics. He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, where he became a strong advocate of free public education. Financial setbacks in 1842 caused him to move his home and practice to the larger city of Lancaster. There, he joined the Whig Party and was elected to Congress in 1848. His activities as a lawyer and politician in opposition to slavery cost him votes, and did not seek reelection in 1852. After a brief flirtation with the Know-Nothing Party, Stevens joined the newly formed Republican Party and was elected to Congress again in 1858. There, with fellow radicals such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner, he opposed the expansion of slavery and concessions to the South as the war came.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens argued that slavery should not survive the war; he was frustrated by the slowness of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln to support his position. He guided the government's financial legislation through the House as Ways and Means chairman. As the war progressed towards a Northern victory, Stevens came to believe that not only should slavery be abolished, but that black Americans should be given a stake in the South's future through the confiscation of land from planters to be distributed to the freedmen. His plans went too far for the Moderate Republicans and were not enacted.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: After the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in April 1865, Stevens came into conflict with the new president, Johnson, who sought rapid restoration of the seceded states without guarantees for freedmen. The difference in views caused an ongoing battle between Johnson and Congress, with Stevens leading the Radical Republicans. After gains in the 1866 election, the radicals took control of Reconstruction away from Johnson. Stevens's last great battle was to secure in the House articles of impeachment against Johnson, acting as a House manager in the impeachment trial, though the Senate did not convict the President.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Historiographical views of Stevens have dramatically shifted over the years, from the early 20th-century view of Stevens as reckless and motivated by hatred of the white South to the perspective of the neoabolitionists of the 1950s and afterward, who lauded him for his commitment to equality.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was born in Danville, Vermont, on April 4, 1792. He was the second of four children, all boys, and was named to honor the Polish general who served in the American Revolution, Thaddeus Kościuszko. His parents were Baptists who had emigrated from Massachusetts around 1786. Thaddeus was born with a club foot which, at the time, was seen by some as a judgment from God for secret parental sin. His older brother was born with the same condition in both feet. The boys' father, Joshua Stevens, was a farmer and cobbler who struggled to make a living in Vermont. After fathering two more sons (born without disability), Joshua abandoned the children and his wife Sarah (née Morrill). The circumstances of his departure and his subsequent fate are uncertain; he may have died at the Battle of Oswego during the War of 1812.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Sarah Stevens struggled to make a living from the farm even with the increasing aid of her sons. She was determined that her sons improve themselves, and in 1807 moved the family to the neighboring town of Peacham, Vermont, where she enrolled young Thaddeus in the Caledonia Grammar School (often called the Peacham Academy). He suffered much from the taunts of his classmates for his disability. Later accounts describe him as "wilful, headstrong" with "an overwhelming burning desire to secure an education."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: After graduation, he enrolled at the University of Vermont, but suspended his studies due to the federal government's appropriation of campus buildings during the War of 1812. Stevens then enrolled in the sophomore class at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. At Dartmouth, despite a stellar academic career, he was not elected to Phi Beta Kappa; this was reportedly a scarring experience for him.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens graduated from Dartmouth in 1814 and was chosen as a speaker at the commencement ceremony. Afterward, he returned to Peacham and briefly taught there. Stevens also began to read law in the office of John Mattocks. In early 1815, correspondence with a friend Samuel Merrill, a fellow Vermonter who had moved to York, Pennsylvania to become preceptor of the York Academy, led to an offer for Stevens to join the academy faculty. He moved to York to teach, and continued the study of law in the offices of David Cossett.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In Pennsylvania, Stevens taught school at the York Academy and continued his studies for the bar. Local lawyers passed a resolution barring from membership anyone who had "followed any other profession while preparing for admission," a restriction likely aimed at Stevens. Undaunted, he reportedly (according to a story he often retold) presented himself and four bottles of Madeira wine to the examining board in nearby Harford County, Maryland. Few questions were asked, but much wine was drunk. He left Bel Air the next morning with a certificate allowing him, through reciprocity, to practice law anywhere. Stevens then went to Gettysburg, the seat of Adams County, where he opened an office in September 1816.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens knew no one in Gettysburg and initially had little success as a lawyer. His breakthrough, in mid-1817, was a case in which a farmer who had been jailed for debt later killed one of the constables who had arrested him. His defense, although unsuccessful, impressed the local people, and he never lacked for business thereafter. In his legal career, he demonstrated the propensity for sarcasm that would later mark him as a politician, once telling a judge who accused him of manifesting contempt of court, "Sir, I am doing my best to conceal it."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Many who memorialized Stevens after his death in 1868 agreed on his talent as a lawyer. He was involved in the first ten cases to reach the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania from Adams County after he began his practice and won nine. One case he later wished he had not won was "Butler v. Delaplaine", in which he successfully reclaimed a slave on behalf of her owner.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In Gettysburg, Stevens also began his involvement in politics, serving six one-year terms on the borough council between 1822 and 1831 and becoming its president. He took the profits from his practice and invested them in Gettysburg real estate, becoming the largest landowner in the community by 1825, and had an interest in several iron furnaces outside town. In addition to assets, he acquired enemies; after the death of a pregnant black woman in Gettysburg, there were anonymous letter-writers to newspapers, hinting that Stevens was culpable. The rumors dogged him for years; when one newspaper opposed to Stevens printed a letter in 1831 naming him as the killer, he successfully sued for libel.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens's first political cause was Anti-Masonry, which became widespread in 1826 after the disappearance and death of William Morgan, a Mason in Upstate New York; fellow Masons were presumed to be the killers of Morgan because they disapproved of his publishing a book revealing the order's secret rites. Since the leading candidate in opposition to President John Quincy Adams was General Andrew Jackson, a Mason who mocked opponents of the order, Anti-Masonry became closely associated with opposition to Jackson and his Jacksonian democracy policies once he was elected president in 1828.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Jackson's adherents were from the old Democratic-Republican Party and eventually became known as the Democrats. Stevens had been told by a fellow attorney (and future president) James Buchanan that he could advance politically if he joined them. However, Stevens could not support Jackson, out of principle. For Stevens, Anti-Masonry became one means of opposing Jackson; he may also have had personal reasons as the Masons barred "cripples" from joining. Stevens took to Anti-Masonry with enthusiasm and remained loyal to it after most Pennsylvanians had dropped the cause. His biographer, Hans Trefousse, suggested that another reason for Stevens's virulence was an attack of disease in the late 1820s that cost him his hair (he thereafter wore wigs, often ill-fitting), and "the unwelcome illness may well have contributed to his unreasonable fanaticism concerning the Masons."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: By 1829, Anti-Masonry had evolved into a political party, the Anti-Masonic Party, that proved popular in rural central Pennsylvania. Stevens quickly became prominent in the movement, attending the party's first two national conventions in 1830 and 1831. At the latter, he pressed the candidacy of Supreme Court Justice John McLean as the party's presidential candidate, but in vain as the nomination fell to former Attorney General William Wirt. Jackson was easily reelected; the crushing defeat (Wirt won only Vermont) caused the party to disappear in most places, though it remained powerful in Pennsylvania for several years.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In September 1833, Stevens was elected to a one-year term in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives as an Anti-Mason. Once in the capital Harrisburg, he sought to have the body establish a committee to investigate Masonry. Stevens gained attention far beyond Pennsylvania for his oratory against Masonry and quickly became an expert in legislative maneuvers. In 1835, a split among the Democrats put the Anti-Masons in control of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature. Granted subpoena powers, Stevens summoned leading state politicians who were Masons, including Governor George Wolf. The witnesses invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, and when Stevens verbally abused one of them, it created a backlash that caused his own party to end the investigation. The fracas cost Stevens reelection in 1836, and the issue of Anti-Masonry died in Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, Stevens remained an opponent of the order for the rest of his life.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Beginning with his early years in Gettysburg, Stevens advanced the cause of universal education. At the time, no state outside New England had free public education for all. In Pennsylvania, there was free education in Philadelphia, but elsewhere in the state, those wishing to have their children educated without paying tuition had to swear a pauper's oath. Stevens opened his extensive private library to the public and gave up his presidency of the borough council, believing his service on the school board more important. In 1825, he was elected by the voters of Adams County as a trustee of Gettysburg Academy. As the school was failing, Stevens got county voters to agree to pay its debt, allowing it to be sold as a Lutheran seminary. It was granted the right to award college degrees in 1831 as Pennsylvania College, and in 1921 became Gettysburg College. Stevens gave the school land upon which a building could be raised and served as a trustee for many years.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In April 1834, Stevens, working with Governor Wolf, guided an act through the legislature to allow districts across the state to vote on whether to have public schools and the taxes to pay for them. Gettysburg's district voted in favor and also elected Stevens as a school director, where he served until 1839. Tens of thousands of voters signed petitions urging a reversal. The result was a repeal bill that easily passed the Pennsylvania Senate. It was widely believed the bill would also pass the House and be enacted despite opposition by Stevens. When he rose to speak on April 11, 1835, he defended the new educational system, stating that it would actually save money, and demonstrated how. He stated that opponents were seeking to separate the poor into a lower caste than themselves and accused the rich of greed and failure to empathize with the poor. Stevens argued, "Build not your monuments of brass or marble, but make them of everliving mind!" The repeal bill was defeated; Stevens was given wide credit. Trefousse suggested that the victory was not due to Stevens's eloquence, but due to his influence, combined with that of Governor Wolf.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In 1838, Stevens ran again for the legislature. He hoped that if the remaining Anti-Masons and the emerging Whig Party gained a majority, he could be elected to the United States Senate, whose members until 1913 were chosen by state legislatures. A campaign, dirty even by the standards of the times, followed. The result was a Democrat elected as governor, Whig control of the state Senate, and the state House in dispute, with several seats from Philadelphia in question. Stevens won his seat in Adams County, and sought to have those Philadelphia Democrats excluded, which would create a Whig majority that could elect a Speaker and himself as a senator. Amid rioting in Harrisburglater known as the "Buckshot War"Stevens's ploy backfired, with the Democrats taking control of the House. Stevens remained in the legislature for most years through 1842 but the episode cost him much of his political influence. The Whigs blamed him for the debacle and were increasingly unwilling to give leadership to someone who had not yet joined their party. Nevertheless, he supported the pro-business and pro-development Whig stances. He campaigned for the Whig candidate in the 1840 presidential election, former general William Henry Harrison. Though Stevens later alleged that Harrison had promised him a Cabinet position if elected, he received none, and any influence ended when Harrison died after a month in office, to be succeeded by John Tyler, a southerner hostile to Stevens's stances on slavery.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Although Stevens was the most successful lawyer in Gettysburg, he had accrued debt due to his business interests. Refusing to take advantage of the bankruptcy laws, he felt he needed to move to a larger municipality to gain the money to pay his obligations. In 1842, Stevens moved his home and practice to Lancaster. He knew Lancaster County was an Anti-Mason and Whig stronghold, which ensured that he retained a political base. Within a short period, he was earning more than any other Lancaster attorney; by 1848, he had reduced his debts to $30,000 and paid them off soon after. It was in Lancaster that he engaged the services of Lydia Hamilton Smith, a housekeeper, whose racial makeup was described as mulatto, and who remained with him the rest of his life.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In the 1830s, few sought the immediate eradication of slavery. The abolitionist movement was young and only recently had figures such as William Lloyd Garrison taken on the fight. Stevens's reason for adopting slavery as a cause has been disputed among his recent biographers. Richard N. Current, in 1942, suggested it was out of ambition; Fawn Brodie, in her controversial 1959 psychobiography of Stevens, suggested it was out of identification with the downtrodden, based on his handicap. Trefousse, in his 1997 work, also suggested that Stevens's feelings towards the downtrodden were a factor, combined with remorse over the "Butler" case, but that ambition was unlikely to have been a significant motivator, as Stevens's fervor in the anti-slavery cause inhibited his career.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: At the 1837 Pennsylvania constitutional convention, Stevens, who was a delegate, fought against the disenfranchisement of African-Americans (see Black suffrage in Pennsylvania). According to historian Eric Foner, "When Stevens refused to sign the 1837 constitution because of its voting provision, he announced his commitment to a non-racial definition of American citizenship to which he would adhere for the remainder of his life." After he moved to Lancaster, a city not far from the Mason–Dixon line, he became active in the Underground Railroad, not only defending people believed to be fugitive slaves, but coordinating the movements of those seeking freedom. A 2003 renovation at his former home in Lancaster disclosed that there was a hidden cistern, attached to the main building by a concealed tunnel, in which escaped slaves hid.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Until the outbreak of the American Civil War, Stevens took the public position that he supported slavery's end and opposed its expansion. Nevertheless, he would not seek to disturb it in the states where it existed, because the Constitution protected their internal affairs from federal interference. He also supported slave-owning Whig candidates for president: Henry Clay in 1844 and Zachary Taylor in 1848.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In 1848, Stevens ran for election to Congress from Pennsylvania's 8th congressional district. There was opposition to him at the Whig convention. Some delegates felt that because Stevens had been late to join the party, he should not receive the nomination; others disliked his stance on slavery. He narrowly won the nomination. In a strong year for Whigs nationally, Taylor was chosen as president and Stevens was elected to Congress.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: When the 31st United States Congress convened in December 1849, Stevens took his seat, joining other newly elected slavery opponents such as Salmon P. Chase. Stevens spoke out against the Compromise of 1850, crafted by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, that gave victories to both North and South, but would allow for some of the territories of the United States recently gained from Mexico to become slave states. As the debates continued, in June he said, "This word 'compromise' when applied to human rights and constitutional rights I abhor." Nevertheless, the pieces of legislation that made up the Compromise passed, including the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which Stevens found particularly offensive. Although many Americans hoped that the Compromise would bring sectional peace, Stevens warned that it would be "the fruitful mother of future rebellion, disunion, and civil war."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was easily renominated and reelected in 1850, even though his stance caused him problems among pro-Compromise Whigs. In 1851, Stevens was one of the defense lawyers in the trial of 38 African-Americans and three others in federal court in Philadelphia on treason charges. The defendants had been implicated in the so-called Christiana Riot: an attempt to enforce a Fugitive Slave Act warrant had resulted in the killing of the slaveowner. Justice Robert Grier of the U.S. Supreme Court, as circuit justice, tried the case, and instructed the jury to acquit because though the defendants might be guilty of murder or riot, they were not charged with that and were not guilty of treason. The well-publicized incident (and others like it) increased polarization over the issue of slavery, and made Stevens a prominent face of Northern abolitionism.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Despite this trend, Stevens suffered political problems. He left the Whig caucus in December 1851, when his colleagues would not join him in seeking the repeal of the offensive elements of the Compromise. Nevertheless, he supported its unsuccessful 1852 candidate for president, General Winfield Scott. His political opposition, and local dislike of his stance on slavery and participation in the treason trial, made him unlikely to win renomination, and he sought only to pick his successor. His choice was defeated for the Whig nomination.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Out of office, Stevens concentrated on the practice of law in Lancaster, remaining one of the leading attorneys in the state. He stayed active in politics, and in 1854, to gain more votes for the anti-slavery movement, he joined the nativist Know Nothing Party. The members were pledged not to speak of party deliberations (thus, they knew nothing), and Stevens was attacked for his membership in a group with similar secrecy rules as the Masons. In 1855, Stevens joined the new Republican Party. Other former Whigs who were anti-slavery joined as well, including William H. Seward of New York, Charles E. Sumner of Massachusetts, and Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was a delegate to the 1856 Republican National Convention, where he supported Justice McLean, as he had in 1832. However, the convention nominated John C. Frémont, whom Stevens actively supported in the race against his fellow Lancastrian, the Democratic candidate James Buchanan. Nonetheless, Pennsylvania helped elect Buchanan. Stevens returned to the practice of law, but in 1858, with the President and his party unpopular and the nation torn by such controversies as the Dred Scott decision, Stevens saw an opportunity to return to Congress. As the Republican nominee, he was easily elected. Democratic papers were appalled. One banner headline read, "Niggerism Triumphant."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens took his seat in the 36th United States Congress in December 1859, only days after the hanging of John Brown, who had attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry hoping to cause a slave insurrection. Stevens opposed Brown's violent actions at the time, though later, he was more approving. Sectional tensions spilled over into the House, which proved unable to elect a Speaker of the United States House for eight weeks. Stevens was active in the bitter flow of invective from both sides; at one point, Mississippi Congressman William Barksdale drew a knife on him, though no blood was spilled.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: With the Democrats unable to agree on a single presidential candidate, the 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago became crucial, as the nominee would be in a favorable position to become president. Prominent figures in the party, such as Seward and Lincoln, sought the nomination. Stevens continued to support the 75-year-old Justice McLean. Beginning on the second ballot, most Pennsylvania delegates supported Lincoln, helping to win him the nomination. As the Democrats put up no candidate in his district, Stevens was assured of reelection to the House and campaigned for Lincoln in Pennsylvania. Lincoln won a majority in the Electoral College. The President-elect's known opposition to the expansion of slavery caused immediate talk of secession in the southern states, a threat that Stevens had downplayed during the campaign.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Congress convened in December 1860, with several of the southern states already pledging to secede. Stevens was unyielding in opposing efforts to appease the southerners, such as the Crittenden Compromise, which would have enshrined slavery as beyond constitutional amendment. He stated, in a remark widely quoted both North and South, that rather than offer concessions because of Lincoln's election, he would see "this Government crumble into a thousand atoms," and that the forces of the United States would crush any rebellion. Despite Stevens's protests, the lame-duck Buchanan administration did little in response to the secession votes, allowing most federal resources in the South to fall into rebel hands. Even in the abolition movement, many were content to let it be so and let the South go its own way. Stevens disagreed, and the congressman was "undoubtedly pleased" by Lincoln's statement in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, that he would "hold, occupy and possess the property and places belonging to the Government."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: When the war began in April 1861, Stevens argued that the Confederates were revolutionaries to be crushed by force. He also believed that the Confederacy had placed itself beyond the protection of the U.S. Constitution by making war, and that in a reconstituted United States, slavery should have no place. Speaker Galusha Grow, whose views placed him with Stevens among the members becoming known as the Radical Republicans (for their position on slavery, as opposed to the liberal or moderate Republicans), appointed him as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. This position gave him power over the House's agenda.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In July 1861, Stevens secured the passage of an act to confiscate the property, including slaves, of certain rebels. In November 1861, Stevens introduced a resolution to emancipate all slaves; it was defeated. However, legislation did pass that abolished slavery in the District of Columbia and in the territories. By March 1862, to Stevens's exasperation, the most Lincoln had publicly supported was gradual emancipation in the Border states, with the slave owners compensated by the federal government.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens and other radicals were frustrated at how slow Lincoln was to adopt their policies for emancipation; according to Brodie, "Lincoln seldom succeeded in matching Stevens's pace, though both were marching towards the same bright horizon." In April 1862, Stevens wrote to a friend, "As for future hopes, they are poor as Lincoln is nobody." The radicals aggressively pushed the issue, provoking Lincoln to comment: "Stevens, Sumner and [Massachusetts Senator Henry] Wilson simply haunt me with their importunities for a Proclamation of Emancipation. Wherever I go and whatever way I turn, they are on my tail, and still in my heart, I have the deep conviction that the hour [to issue one] has not yet come." The President stated that if it came to a showdown between the radicals and their enemies, he would have to side with Stevens and his fellows, and deemed them "the unhandiest devils in the world to deal with" but "with their faces... set Zionwards." Although Lincoln composed his proclamation in June and July 1862, the secret was held within his Cabinet, and the President turned aside radical pleadings to issue one until after the Union victory at the Battle of Antietam in September. Stevens quickly adopted the Emancipation Proclamation for use in his successful re-election campaign. When Congress returned in December, Stevens maintained his criticism of Lincoln's policies, calling them "flagrant usurpations, deserving the condemnation of the community." Stevens generally opposed Lincoln's plans to colonize freed slaves abroad, though sometimes he supported emigration proposals for political reasons. Stevens wrote to a nephew in June 1863 saying, "The slaves ought to be incited to insurrection and give the rebels a taste of real civil war."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: During the Confederate incursion into the North in mid-1863 that culminated in the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederates twice sent parties to Stevens's Caledonia Forge. Stevens, who had been there supervising operations, was hastened away by his workers against his will. General Jubal Early looted and vandalized the Forge, causing a loss to Stevens of about $80,000. Early said that the North had done the same to southern figures and that Stevens was well known for his vindictiveness towards the South. Asked if he would have taken the congressman to Libby Prison in Richmond, Early replied that he would have hanged Stevens and divided his bones among the Confederate states.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens pushed Congress to pass a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation was a wartime measure, did not apply to all slaves, and might be reversed by peacetime courts; an amendment would be slavery's end. The Thirteenth Amendmentwhich outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crimeeasily passed the Senate but failed in the House in June; fears that it might not pass delayed a renewed attempt there. Lincoln campaigned aggressively for the amendment after his re-election in 1864, and Stevens described his December annual message to Congress as "the most important and best message that has been communicated to Congress for the last 60years". Stevens closed the debate on the amendment on January 13, 1865. Illinois Representative Isaac Arnold wrote: "distinguished soldiers and citizens filled every available seat, to hear the eloquent old man speak on a measure that was to consummate the warfare of forty years against slavery."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: The amendment passed narrowly after heavy pressure exerted by Lincoln himself, along with offers of political appointments from the "Seward lobby". Democrats made allegations of bribery; Stevens stated: "the greatest measure of the nineteenth century was passed by corruption, aided and abetted by the purest man in America." The amendment was declared ratified on December 18, 1865. Stevens continued to push for a broad interpretation of it that included economic justice in addition to the formal end of slavery.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: After passing the Thirteenth Amendment, Congress debated the economic rights of the freedmen. Urged on by Stevens, it voted to authorize the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, with a mandate (though no funding) to set up schools and to distribute "not more than forty acres" [16 ha] of confiscated Confederate land to each family of freed slaves.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens worked closely with Lincoln administration officials on legislation to finance the war. Within a day of his appointment as Ways and Means chairman, he had reported a bill for a war loan. Legislation to pay the soldiers Lincoln had already called into service and to allow the administration to borrow to prosecute the war quickly followed. These acts and more were pushed through the House by Stevens. To defeat the delaying tactics of Copperhead opponents, he had the House set debate limits as short as half a minute.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens played a major part in the passage of the Legal Tender Act of 1862 when for the first time, the United States issued currency backed only by its own credit, not by gold or silver. Early makeshifts to finance the war, such as war bonds, had failed as it became clear the war would not be short. In 1863, Stevens aided the passage of the National Banking Act, which required that banks limit their currency issues to the number of federal bonds that they were required to hold. The system endured for half a century until supplanted by the Federal Reserve System in 1913.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Although the Legal Tender legislation allowed for the payment of government obligations in paper money, Stevens was unable to get the Senate to agree that interest on the national debt should be paid with greenbacks. As the value of paper money dropped, Stevens railed against gold speculators, and in June 1864, after consultation with Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, proposed what became known as the Gold Billto abolish the gold market by forbidding its sale by brokers or for future delivery. It passed Congress in June; the chaos caused by the lack of an organized gold market caused the value of paper to drop even faster. Under heavy pressure from the business community, Congress repealed the bill on July 1, twelve days after its passage. Stevens was unrepentant even as the value of paper currency recovered in late 1864 amid the expectation of Union victory, proposing legislation to make paying a premium in greenbacks for an amount in gold coin a criminal offense. It did not pass.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Like most Pennsylvania politicians of both parties, Stevens was a major proponent of tariffs, which increased from 19% to 48% from fiscal 1861 to fiscal 1865. According to activist Ida Tarbell in "The Tariff in Our Times:" [Import] duties were never too high for [Stevens], particularly for iron, for he was a manufacturer and it was often said in Pennsylvania that the duties he advocated in no way represented the large iron interests of the state, but were hoisted to cover the needs of his own... badly managed works."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: As Congress debated how the U.S. would be organized after the war, the status of freed slaves and former Confederates remained undetermined. Stevens stated that what was needed was a "radical reorganization of southern institutions, habits, and manners." Stevens, Sumner, and other radicals argued that the southern states should be treated like conquered provinces without constitutional rights. Lincoln, on the contrary, said that only individuals, not states, had rebelled. In July 1864, Stevens pushed Lincoln to sign the Wade–Davis Bill, which required at least half of prewar voters to sign an oath of loyalty for a state to gain readmission. Lincoln, who advocated his more lenient ten percent plan, pocket vetoed it.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens reluctantly voted for Lincoln at the convention of the National Union Party, a coalition of Republicans and War Democrats. He would have preferred to vote for the sitting vice president, Hannibal Hamlin, as Lincoln's running mate in 1864. However, his delegation voted to cast the state's ballots for the administration's favored candidate, Military Governor of Tennessee Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat who had been a Tennessee senator and elected governor. Stevens was disgusted at Johnson's nomination, complaining, "can't you get a candidate for Vice-President without going down into a damned rebel province for one?" Stevens campaigned for the Lincoln–Johnson ticket; it was elected, as was Stevens for another term in the House. When in January 1865 Congress learned that Lincoln had attempted peace talks with Confederate leaders, an outraged Stevens declared that if the American electorate could vote again, they would elect General Benjamin Butler instead of Lincoln.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Before leaving town after Congress adjourned in March 1865, Stevens privately urged Lincoln to press the South hard militarily, though the war was ending. Lincoln replied, "Stevens, this is a pretty big hog we are trying to catch and to hold when we catch him. We must take care that he does not slip away from us." Never to see Lincoln again, Stevens left with "a homely metaphor but no real certainty of having left as much as a thumbprint on Lincoln's policy." On the evening of April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth. Stevens did not attend the ceremonies when Lincoln's funeral train stopped in Lancaster; he was said to be ill. Trefousse speculated he might have avoided the rites for other reasons. According to Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, Stevens stood at a railroad bridge and lifted his hat.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In May 1865, Andrew Johnson began what came to be known as "Presidential Reconstruction": recognizing a provisional government of Virginia led by Francis Harrison Pierpont, calling for other former rebel states to organize constitutional conventions, declaring amnesty for many southerners, and issuing individual pardons to even more. Johnson did not push the states to protect the rights of freed slaves, and immediately began to counteract the land reform policies of the Freedmen's Bureau. These actions outraged Stevens and others who took his view. The radicals saw that freedmen in the South risked losing the economic and political liberty necessary to sustain emancipation from slavery. They began to call for universal male suffrage and continued their demands for land reform.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens wrote to Johnson that his policies were gravely damaging the country and that he should call a special session of Congress, which was not scheduled to meet until December. When his communications were ignored, Stevens began to discuss with other radicals how to prevail over Johnson when the two houses convened. Congress has the constitutional power to judge whether those seeking to be its members are properly elected; Stevens urged that no senators or representatives from the South be seated. He argued that the states should not be readmitted as thereafter Congress would lack the power to force race reform.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In September, Stevens gave a widely reprinted speech in Lancaster in which he set forth what he wanted for the South. He proposed that the government confiscate the estates of the largest 70,000 landholders there, those who owned more than . Much of this property he wanted distributed in plots of to the freedmen; other lands would go to reward loyalists both North and South, or to meet government obligations. He warned that under the President's plan, the southern states would send rebels to Congress who would join with northern Democrats and Johnson to govern the nation and perhaps undo emancipation.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Through late 1865, the southern states held white-only balloting and, in congressional elections, chose many former rebels, most prominently Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens, voted as senator by the Georgia Legislature. Violence against African-Americans was common and unpunished in the South; the new legislatures enacted Black Codes, depriving the freedmen of most civil rights. These actions, seen as provocative in the North, both privately dismayed Johnson and helped turn northern public opinion against the president. Stevens proclaimed that "This is not a 'white man's Government'!... To say so is political blasphemy, for it violates the fundamental principles of our gospel of liberty."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: By this time, Stevens was past age seventy and in poor health; he was carried everywhere in a special chair. When Congress convened in early December 1865, Stevens made arrangements with the Clerk of the House that when the roll was called, the names of the Southern electees be omitted. The Senate also excluded Southern claimants. A new congressman, Ohio's Rutherford B. Hayes, described Stevens: "He is radical throughout, except, I am told, he don't ["recte" doesn't] believe in hanging. He is [a] leader."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: As the responsibilities of the Ways and Means chairman had been divided, Stevens took the post of Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, retaining control over the House's agenda. Stevens focused on legislation that would secure the freedom promised by the newly ratified Thirteenth Amendment. He proposed and then co-chaired the Joint Committee on Reconstruction with Maine Senator William Pitt Fessenden. This body, also called the Committee of Fifteen, investigated conditions in the South. It heard not only of the violence against African-Americans but against Union loyalists and against what southerners termed "carpetbaggers". Northerners who had journeyed south after the restoration of peace. Stevens declared: that "our loyal brethren at the South, whether they be black or white," required urgent protection "from the barbarians who are now daily murdering them".


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: The Committee of Fifteen began to consider what would become the Fourteenth Amendment. Stevens had begun drafting versions in December 1865, before the Committee had even formed. In January 1866, a subcommittee including Stevens and John Bingham proposed two amendments: one giving Congress the unqualified power to secure equal rights, privileges, and protections for all citizens; the other explicitly annulling all racially discriminatory laws. Stevens believed that the Declaration of Independence and Organic Acts already bound the federal government to these principles, but that an amendment was necessary to allow enforcement against discrimination at the state level. The resolution providing for what would become the Fourteenth Amendment was watered down in Congress; during the closing debate, Stevens said these changes had shattered his lifelong dream in equality for all Americans. Nevertheless, stating that he lived among men, not angels, he supported the passage of the compromise amendment. Still, Stevens told the House: "Forty acres of land and a hut would be more valuable to [the African-American] than the immediate right to vote."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: When Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull introduced legislation to reauthorize and expand the Freedmen's Bureau, Stevens called the bill a "robbery" because it did not include sufficient provisions for land reform or protect the property of refugees given them by the military occupation of the South. Johnson vetoed the bill anyway, calling the Freedmen's Bureau unconstitutional, and decrying its cost: Congress had never purchased land, established schools, or provided financial help for "our own people." Congress was unable to override Johnson's veto in February, but five months later passed a . Stevens criticized the passage of the Southern Homestead Act of 1866, arguing that the low-quality land it made available would not drive real economic growth for black families.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Congress overrode a Johnson veto to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (also introduced by Trumbull), granting African-Americans citizenship and equality before the law and forbidding any action by a state to the contrary. Johnson made the gap between him and Congress wider when he accused Stevens, Sumner, and Wendell Phillips of trying to destroy the government.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: After Congress adjourned in July, the campaigning for the fall elections began. Johnson embarked on a trip by rail, dubbed the "Swing Around the Circle" that won him few supporters; his arguments with hecklers were deemed undignified. He attacked Stevens and other radicals during this tour. Stevens campaigned for firm measures against the South, his hand strengthened by violence in Memphis and New Orleans, where African-Americans and white Unionists had been attacked by mobs, including the police. Stevens was returned to Congress by his constituents; Republicans would have a two-thirds majority in both houses in the next Congress.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: In January 1867, Stevens introduced legislation to divide the South into five districts, each commanded by an army general empowered to override civil authorities. These military officers were to supervise elections with all males of whatever race, entitled to vote, except for those who could not take an oath of past loyaltymost white Southerners could not. The states were to write new constitutions (subject to approval by Congress) and hold elections for state officials. Only if a state ratified the Fourteenth Amendment would its delegation be seated in Congress. The system gave power to a Republican coalition of freedmen (mobilized by the Union League), carpetbaggers, and co-operative Southerners (the last dubbed scalawags by indignant ex-rebels) in most southern states. These states ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in mid-1868.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens introduced a Tenure of Office Act, restricting Johnson from firing officials who had received Senate confirmation without getting that body's consent. The Tenure of Office Act was ambiguous since it could be read to protect officeholders only during the tenure of the president who appointed them, and most of the officials the radicals sought to protect had been named by Lincoln. Chief among these was Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, a radical himself.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens steered a bill to enfranchise African-Americans in the District of Columbia through the House. The Senate passed it in 1867, and it was enacted over Johnson's veto. Congress was downsizing the Army for peacetime; Stevens offered an amendment, which became part of the bill as enacted, to have two regiments of African-American cavalry. His solicitude for African-Americans extended to the Native American; Stevens was successful in defeating a bill to place reservations under state law, noting that the native people had often been abused by the states. An expansionist, he supported the railroads. He added a stipulation into the [Transcontinental] Pacific Railroad Act requiring the applicable railroads to buy iron "of American manufacture" of the top price qualities. Although he sought to protect manufacturers with high tariffs, he also sought unsuccessfully to get a bill passed to protect labor with an eight-hour day in the District of Columbia. Stevens advocated a bill to give government workers raises; it did not pass.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: With Stevens' agreement, James Mitchell Ashley introduced a resolution on January 7, 1867 for a Judiciary Committee-run inquiry on impeachment, which passed the House.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: The 40th Congress, which convened on March 4, 1867, proved to be less aggressive in opposing Johnson than Stevens had hoped. It soon adjourned until July, though the Judiciary Committee remained to hold hearings on impeachment. Stevens (who believed that impeachment was a "purely political proceeding intended as a remedy for malfeasance in office and to prevent continuance thereof") firmly supported impeachment, but others were less enthusiastic once the Senate elected Ohio's Benjamin Wade as its president "pro tempore", next in line to the presidency in the absence of a vice president. Wade was a radical who supported wealth redistribution; a speech of his in Kansas so impressed Karl Marx that he mentioned it in the first German edition of "Das Kapital". Also a supporter of women's suffrage, Wade was widely mistrusted for his views; the prospect of his succession made some advocates of Johnson's removal more hesitant. Stevens, though, strongly supported the removal of the president, and when the Judiciary Committee failed to report, tried to keep Congress in session until it did. Despite his opposition to its leader, Stevens worked with the administration on matters both supported; he obtained an appropriation for the purchase of Alaska and urged Secretary of State Seward to seek other territories into which to expand .


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Most of Johnson's Cabinet supported him, but Secretary of War Stanton did not, and with the General of the Army, war hero Ulysses S. Grant, worked to undermine Johnson's Reconstruction policies. Johnson obeyed the laws that Congress had passed, sometimes over his veto, but often interpreted them in ways contrary to their intent. After Stanton refused Johnson's request that he resign in August 1867, Johnson suspended Stanton, as permitted by the Tenure of Office Act, and made General Grant interim Secretary of War. Republicans campaigned in that year's election on the issue of African-American suffrage, but were met with a voter surge towards the Democrats, who opposed it. Although no seats at Congress were directly at stake, voters in Ohio both defeated a referendum on black suffrage and elected the Democrats to the majority in the legislature, meaning that Wade, whose term was due to expire in 1869, would not be reelected.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: When Congress met again, on December 7, 1867 Stevens voted for an impeachment resolution that was heavily defeated, though the Judiciary Committee had voted 5–4 for impeachment.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was chairman of the House Select Committee on Reconstruction, which was tasked by the House on January 27, 1868 with running a second impeachment inquiry. Only four of the nine members (three Republicans and a Democrat) had supported impeachment in December 1867. On February 13, 1868, Stevens presented to the committee a report accusing Johnson of actions that intended to violate the Tenure of Office Act. The committee tabled it by a 5–4 vote.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: The prospects of impeachment took new life on February 21, 1868. The Senate had previously, on January 13, 1868, overturned Johnson's suspension of Stanton. Grant then resigned as Secretary of War, and Stanton reclaimed his place. However, on February 21, the president ousted Stanton from his position, appointing General Lorenzo Thomas in his placethough Stanton barricaded himself in his office. These actions caused great excitement in Washington, and in the House of Representatives, Stevens went from group to group on the floor, repeating, "Didn't I tell you so? What good did your moderation do you? If you don't kill the beast, it will kill you." On February 22, Stevens reported from the Select Committee on Reconstruction a resolution and a report opining that Johnson should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. Stevens concluded the debate on the impeachment resolution on February 24, though due to his poor health, he could not complete his speech and gave it to the Clerk to read aloud. In the speech, he accused Johnson of usurping the powers of other branches of government and ignoring the people's will. He did not deny impeachment was a political matter, but "this is not to be the temporary triumph of a political party, but is to endure in its consequence until the whole continent shall be filled with a free and untrammeled people or shall be a nest of shrinking, cowardly slaves." The House voted 126–47 to impeach the president.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens led the delegation of House members sent the following day to inform the Senate of the impeachment, though he had to be carried to its doors by his bearers. Elected to the committee charged with drafting articles of impeachment, his illness limited his involvement. Nevertheless, dissatisfied with the committee's proposed articles, Stevens suggested another that would become ArticleXI. This grounded the various accusations in statements Johnson had made denying the legitimacy of Congress due to the exclusion of the southern states and stated that Johnson had tried to disobey the Reconstruction Acts. Stevens also urged Benjamin Butler to, independent of the committee, write his own impeachment article, which would ultimately be adopted as Article X.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was one of the managers (prosecutors) elected by the House to present its case in the impeachment trial. Although Stevens was too ill to appear in the Senate on March 3, when the managers requested that Johnson be summoned (the president would appear only by his counsel or defense managers), he was there ten days later when the summons was returnable. The "New York Herald" described him as having a "face of corpselike color, and rigidly twitching lips... a strange and unearthly apparitiona reclused remonstrance from the tomb... the very embodiment of fanaticism, without a solitary leaven of justice or mercy... the avenging Nemesis of his partythe sworn and implacable foe of the Executive of the nation."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Increasingly ill, Stevens took little part in the impeachment trial, at which the leading House manager was Massachusetts Representative Benjamin F. Butler. Stevens nourished himself on the Senate floor with raw eggs and terrapin, port and brandy. He spoke only twice before making a closing argument for the House managers on April 27. As he spoke, his voice weakened, and finally, he allowed Butler to read the second half of his speech for him. Stevens focused on ArticleXI, taking the position that Johnson could be removed for political crimes; he need not have committed an offense against the law. The president, having sworn to faithfully execute the laws, had intentionally disobeyed the Tenure of Office Act after the Senate had refused to uphold his removal of Stanton, "and now this offspring of assassination turns upon the Senate who have... rebuked him in a constitutional manner and bids them defiance. How can he escape the just vengeance of the law?"


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Most radicals were confident that Johnson would be convicted and removed from office. Stevens, though, was never certain of the result as Chief Justice Chase (the former Treasury Secretary) made rulings that favored the defense, and he had no great confidence Republicans would stick together. On May 11, the Senate met in secret session, and senators gave speeches explaining how they intended to vote. All Democrats were opposed, but an unexpectedly large number of Republicans also favored acquittal on some or all of the articles. Counting votes, managers realized their best chance of gaining the required two-thirds for conviction was on the Stevens-inspired ArticleXI, and when the Senate assembled to give its verdict, they scheduled it to be voted upon first. The suspense was broken when Kansas Senator Edmund Ross, whose position was uncertain, voted for acquittal. This meant that, with the votes of those who remained, the president would not be convicted on that article. The article failed, 35 in favor to 19 opposed. In the hope that delay would bring a different result, Republicans adjourned the Senate for ten days. Stevens was carried from the Senate in his chairone observer described him as "black with rage and disappointment"and when those outside clamored for the result, Stevens shouted, "The country is going to the devil!"


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: During the recess of the impeachment court, the Republicans met in convention in Chicago and nominated Grant for president. Stevens did not attend and was dismayed by the exclusion of African-American suffrage from the party platform as radical influence began to fade in the Republican Party. When the Senate returned to session, it voted down ArticlesII andIII by the same 35–19 margin as before, and Chase declared the President acquitted. Stevens did not give up on the idea of removing Johnson; in July, he proffered several more impeachment articles (the House refused to adopt them). He offered a bill to divide Texas into several parts to gain additional Republican senators to vote out Johnson. It was defeated; the "Herald" stated, "It is lamentable to see this old man, with one foot in the grave, pursuing the President with such vindictiveness." Nevertheless, Stevens planned to revisit the question of impeachment when Congress met again in late 1868.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Brodie suggested that Stevens's hatred of Johnson was the only thing keeping him from despair, aware as he was of the continued violence in the South, some of which was committed by the Ku Klux Klan. Several of the southern states had been re-admitted by this time. The murders and intimidation were aiding the Democrats there in restoring white rule. With the Republicans unwilling to embrace black suffrage in their platform and the Democrats opposed to it, Stevens feared Democratic victory in the 1868 elections might even bring back slavery. He told his fellow Pennsylvania politician, Alexander McClure, "My life has been a failure. With all this great struggle of years in Washington and the fearful sacrifice of life and treasure, I see little hope for the Republic." Stevens took pride in his role in establishing free public education in Pennsylvania. When interviewed by a reporter seeking to gain his life story, Stevens replied, "I have no history. My life-long regret is that I have lived so long and so uselessly." Nevertheless, in his last formal speech to the House, Stevens stated that "man still is vile. But such large steps have lately been taken in the true direction, that the patriot has a right to take courage."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: When Congress adjourned in late July, Stevens remained in Washington, too ill to return to Pennsylvania. Stevens was in pain from his stomach ailments, from swollen feet, and from dropsy. By early August, he was unable to leave the house. He still received some visitors, though, and correctly predicted to his friend and former student Simon Stevens (no relation) that Grant would win the election. On the afternoon of August 11, his doctor warned that he would probably not last through the night. His longtime housekeeper and companion, Lydia Hamilton Smith, his nephew Thaddeus, and friends gathered by him. Two black preachers came to pray by him, telling him that he had the prayers of all their people. He sucked on ice to try to soothe the pain; his last words were a request for more of it. Thaddeus Stevens died on the night of August 11, 1868, as the old day departed.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: President Johnson issued no statement upon the death of his enemy. Newspaper reaction was generally along partisan lines, though sometimes mixed. The Detroit "Post" stated that "if to die crowned with noble laurels, and... secure of ["recte" in] the respect of the world... is an end worthy the ambition of a well spent life, then the veteran Radical may lie down with the noblest of the fathers to a well contented sleep." "The New York Times" stated that Stevens had "discerned the expediency of emancipation, and urged it long before Mr. Lincoln issued his proclamation" but that after the war, "on the subject of Reconstruction, then, Mr. Stevens must be deemed the Evil Genius of the Republican Party. The [Franklin, Louisiana] "Planter's Banner" exulted, "The prayers of the righteous have at last removed the Congressional curse! May... the fires of his new furnace never go out!"


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens's body was conveyed from his house to the Capitol by white and black pallbearers together. Thousands of mourners, of both races, filed past his casket as he lay in state at the United States Capitol rotunda; Stevens was the third man, after Clay and Lincoln, to receive that honor. African-American soldiers constituted the guard of honor. After a service there, his body was taken by funeral train to Lancaster, a city draped in black for the funeral. Stevens was laid to rest in Shreiner's Cemetery (today the Shreiner-Concord Cemetery); it allowed the burial of people of all races, although, at the time of Stevens's interment, only one African-American was buried there. The people of his district posthumously renominated him to Congress. They elected his former student Oliver J. Dickey to succeed him. When Congress convened in December 1868, there were several speeches in tribute to Stevens; they were afterward collected in book form.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens never married, though there were rumors about his twenty-year relationship (1848–1868) with his widowed housekeeper, Lydia Hamilton Smith (1813–1884). She was a light-skinned African-American; her husband Jacob and at least one of her sons were much darker than she was.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: It is uncertain if the Stevens-Smith relationship was romantic. The Democratic press, especially in the South, assumed so, and when he brought Mrs. Smith to Washington in 1859, she managed his household, which did nothing to stop their insinuations. In the one brief surviving letter from Stevens to her, Stevens addresses her as Mrs. Lydia Smith. Stevens insisted that his nieces and nephews refer to her as Mrs. Smith, deference towards an African-American servant almost unheard of at that time. They do so in surviving letters, warmly, asking Stevens to see that she comes with him next time he visits.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: As evidence that their relationship was sexual, Brodie pointed to an 1868 letter in which Stevens compares himself to Richard M. Johnson, vice president under Martin Van Buren, who lived openly with a series of African-American slave mistresses. Johnson was elected even though this became known during the 1836 campaign, a fact that Stevens notes, and expresses his bitterness about his inability to gain election by the legislature to the Senate, or to secure a Cabinet position.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: When Stevens died, Smith was at his bedside, along with his friend Simon Stevens, nephew Thaddeus Stevens Jr., two African-American nuns, and several other individuals. Under Stevens's will, Smith was allowed to choose between a lump sum of $5,000 or a $500 annual allowance; she could also take any furniture in his house. With the inheritance, she purchased Stevens's house, where she had lived for many years. A Roman Catholic, she chose to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, not near Stevens, although she left money for the upkeep of his grave.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens had taken custody of his two young nephews, Thaddeus (often called "Thaddeus Jr.") and Alanson Joshua Stevens, after their parents died in Vermont. Alanson was sent to work at Stevens's business, Caledonia Forge; Thaddeus Jr. was expelled from Dartmouth College, though he subsequently graduated and was taken into his uncle's law practice. Alanson during the Civil War rose to be commanding captain of a Pennsylvania Volunteers field artillery unit and was killed in action at Chickamauga. After Alanson's death, his uncle used his influence to have Thaddeus Jr. made provost marshal of Lancaster.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Buildings associated with Stevens and with Smith in Lancaster are being renovated by the local historical society, LancasterHistory.org. In his will, Stevens made several bequests, with much of his estate to his nephew Thaddeus Jr., on condition that he refrain from alcohol. If he did not, that bequest would establish an orphanage in Lancaster open to all races and nationalities without discrimination. A legal fight over his estate ensued, and it was not until 1894 that the courts settled the matter, awarding $50,000 to found the orphanage. The school today is the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, in Lancaster.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Schools named after Stevens include Thaddeus Stevens Elementary School in Washington, D.C., founded in 1868 as the first school built for African-American children there. It was segregated for the first 86 years of its existence. In 1977, Amy Carter, daughter of President Jimmy Carter, a Georgian, was enrolled there, the first child of a sitting president to attend public school in almost 70 years.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: As Stevens' biographer Richard N. Current put it, "to find out what really made the man go, the historian would need the combined aid of two experts from outside the professiona psychoanalyst and a spiritualist." The historical view of Thaddeus Stevens has fluctuated widely since his death, generally in a manner inverse to that of Andrew Johnson. Early biographical works on Stevens were composed by men who knew him and reflected their viewpoints. Biographies at the turn of the twentieth century, such as those by Samuel McCall in 1899 and by James Albert Woodburn in 1913, presented Stevens favorably, as a sincere man, motivated by principle. Early African-American historian W. E. B. Du Bois called Stevens "a leader of the common people" and "a stern believer in democracy, both in politics and in industry." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James Ford Rhodes argued that though Stevens had a "profound sympathy" towards the African-American, "coming straight from the heart," he also showed "virulence toward the South" and was "bitter and vindictive." This view of a vengeful Stevens originated during Reconstruction and persisted well into the 20th century.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: With the advent of the Dunning School's view of Reconstruction after 1900, Stevens continued to be viewed negatively and generally as motivated by hatred. These historians, led by William Dunning, taught that Reconstruction had been an opportunity for radical politicians, motivated by ill will towards the South, to destroy what little of southern life and dignity the war had left. Dunning himself deemed Stevens "truculent, vindictive, and cynical". Lloyd Paul Stryker, who wrote a highly favorable 1929 biography of Johnson, labeled Stevens as a "horrible old man... craftily preparing to strangle the bleeding, broken body of the South" and who thought it would be "a beautiful thing" to see "the white men, especially the white women of the South, writhing under negro domination". In 1915, D. W. Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation" (based on the 1905 novel "", by Thomas Dixon Jr.) was released, containing the influenceable and ill-advised Congressman Austin Stoneman, who resembles Stevens down to the ill-fitting wig, limp, and African-American lover, Lydia Brown. This popular treatment reinforced and reinvigorated public prejudices towards Stevens. According to Foner, "as historians exalted the magnanimity of Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, Stevens came to symbolize Northern malice, revenge, and irrational hatred of the South." The highly popular historian James Truslow Adams described Stevens as "perhaps the most despicable, malevolent, and morally deformed character who has ever risen to high power in America".


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Historians who penned biographies of Stevens in the late 1930s sought to move away from this perspective, seeking to rehabilitate him and his political career. Thomas F. Woodley, writing in 1937, shows admiration of Stevens, but he attributed Stevens's driving force to bitterness over his clubfoot. In his 1939 biography, Alphonse Miller found that the former congressman was motivated by a desire for justice. Both men were convinced that recent books had not treated him fairly. Richard Current's 1942 work reflected current Beardian historiography, which saw all American history, including Reconstruction, as a three-way economic struggle between the industrialists of the Northeast (represented by Stevens), the planters of the South, and the farmers of the Midwest. Current argued that Stevens was motivated in his Reconstruction policies by frustrated ambitions and a desire to use his political position to promote industrial capitalism and advance the Republican Party. He concluded that despite Stevens's egalitarian beliefs, he promoted inequality, for "none had done more than he to bring on the age of Big Business, with its concentration of wealth."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: With Ralph Korngold's 1955 biography of Stevens, the neoabolitionist school of historians began to consider the former congressman. These professors rejected the earlier view that those who had gone South to aid the African-Americans after the war were "rapscallion carpetbaggers" defeated by "saintly redeemers." Instead, they applauded those who had sought to end slavery and forward civil rights and castigated Johnson for obstructionism. They believed that the African-American was central to Reconstruction, and the only things wrong with the congressional program were that it did not go far enough and that it stopped too soon. Brodie's 1959 biography of Stevens was of this school. Controversial in its conclusions for being a psychobiography, it found that Stevens was a "consummate underdog who identified with the oppressed" and whose intelligence won him success, while his consciousness of his clubfoot stunted his social development. According to Brodie, this also made him unwilling to marry a woman of his social standing.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Scholars who followed Brodie continued to chip away at the idea of Stevens as a vindictive dictator who dominated Congress to get his way. In 1960, Eric McKitrick deemed Stevens "a picturesque and adroit politician, but a very limited one," whose career was "a long comic sequence of devilish schemes which, one after another, kept blowing up in his face." From the mid-1970s onward, Foner argued that Stevens's role was in staking out a radical position, though events, not Stevens, caused the Republicans to support him. Michael Les Benedict in 1974 suggested that Stevens's reputation as a dictator was based more on his personality than on his influence. In 1989, Allan Bogue found that as chairman of Ways and Means, Stevens was "less than complete master" of his committee.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Historian Hans Trefousse stated in a 1969 study of the Radical Republicans that Stevens's "one abiding passion was equality". In 1991, he noted that Stevens "was one of the most influential representatives ever to serve in Congress. [He dominated] the House with his wit, knowledge of parliamentary law, and sheer willpower, even though he was often unable to prevail." In his 1997 biography of Stevens, though, he took a position similar to McKitrick's: that Stevens was a relatively marginal figure, with his influence often limited by his extremism. Trefousse believed Brodie went too farin deeming Stevens's clubfoot responsible for so much about him and in giving full credence to the Stevens-Smith relationshipboth those things cannot now be determined with certainty.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Stevens was celebrated for his wit and sarcasm. When Lincoln questioned whether Pennsylvania Republican leader Simon Cameron, who was frequently accused of corruption, was a thief, Stevens was said to have replied, "I don't think he would steal a red-hot stove." When Cameron allegedly heard about and objected to this characterization, Stevens is supposed to have told Lincoln "I believe I told you he would not steal a red hot stove. I will now take that back." Stevens's ill-fitting wigs were a well-known topic of discussion in Washington, but when a female admirer who apparently did not know asked for a lock of Stevens's hair as a keepsake, he removed his hairpiece, held it out to her, and invited her to take any curl she found acceptable.


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: Steven Spielberg's 2012 film "Lincoln", in which Stevens was portrayed by Tommy Lee Jones, brought new public interest in Stevens. Jones's character is portrayed as the central figure among the radicals, responsible in large part for the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment. Historian Matthew Pinsker notes that Stevens is referred to only four times in Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 book "Team of Rivals", on which screenwriter Tony Kushner based the film's screenplay; other radicals were folded into the character. Stevens is depicted as unable to moderate his views for the sake of gaining passage of the amendment until after he is urged to do so by the ever-compromising Lincoln. According to Aaron Bady in his article about the film and how it portrays the radicals, "he's the uncle everyone is embarrassed of, even if they love him too much to say so. He's not a leader, he's a liability, one whose shining heroic moment will be when he keeps silent about what he really believes." The film depicts a Stevens-Smith sexual relationship; Pinsker comments that "it may well have been true that they were lovers, but by injecting this issue into the movie, the filmmakers risk leaving the impression for some viewers that the 'secret' reason for Stevens's egalitarianism was his desire to legitimize his romance across racial lines."


title: Thaddeus Stevens

text: On April 2, 2022, in front of the Adams County Courthouse in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, a statue of Stevens was unveiled as part of a celebration of Stevens' 230th birthday. The statue was commissioned by the Thaddeus Stevens Society and was sculpted by multidisciplinary artist Alex Paul Loza.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: First announced in 2010, the film languished in development hell for several years with numerous directors and actors, including Barry Levinson and Al Pacino, attached at various points. Principal photography finally began in July 2016 in Cincinnati, Ohio and concluded in Brooklyn, New York in February 2017.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: The film was originally set to be released in the United States on December 15, 2017, but, just two weeks prior, Lionsgate, the slated distributor, sold the film back to its producers and studio, delaying its release. On March 12, 2018, its new release date was announced for June 15, 2018, by SunRider Productions and Vertical Entertainment, after premiering at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: "Gotti" underperformed both critically and commercially; it grossed just $6 million against a $10 million production budget and received universally negative reviews from critics, who lamented the writing, aesthetics and performances, although its use of makeup and Travolta's performance received some praise. It is one of the few films to hold an approval rating of on the website Rotten Tomatoes. At the 39th Golden Raspberry Awards, the film was nominated for six Razzies, including Worst Picture and Worst Actor for Travolta.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Mob boss John Gotti reflects on his three-decade reign of crime in New York City. In 1972, as a young associate, he is tasked by Aniello "Neil" Dellacroce, underboss to the Gambino family, to kill gangster James McBratney, who is believed to be responsible for the kidnapping and murder of boss Carlo Gambino's nephew. Killing McBratney at a bar, Gotti becomes a “made man”.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Decades later, in the 1990s, an elderly Gotti is incarcerated at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, having been diagnosed with throat cancer. He meets with his son, John “Junior” Gotti, who is considering a plea bargain.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: In 1972, Gotti is identified as McBratney's killer and sentenced to four years at Green Haven; due to the Gambino family's influence, however, he is allowed to leave on "medical furloughs" to conduct further criminal business, including another hit. Gotti is transferred to Lewisburg and is let out on parole in 1974 after serving just two years. He joins his wife, Victoria, and children at their new home in Howard Beach, Queens, while working his way up to become a capo.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: By 1979, Gotti operates out of the Bergin Hunt and Fish Club with his friend Angelo Ruggiero. His oldest son Junior enters the New York Military Academy, but hopes to follow in his father's footsteps. Despite Dellacroce's counsel and the assurances of fellow capo Frank DeCicco, Gotti is mistrustful of the Lucchese family's top underboss, Anthony Casso. In 1980, Gotti's 12-year-old son Frank is struck and killed by a neighbor's car. The neighbor later disappears, and the only witness to his abduction is intimidated into silence.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: By 1985, the Gambino family has come under increased scrutiny, and Gotti becomes convinced that the family boss, Paul Castellano, is too weak to lead. Junior instigates a bar brawl that leaves a man dead, infuriating his father. Federal authorities release a set of embarrassing tapes, caught on an FBI wiretap of Gambino family meetings, that reveal Gotti's involvement in labor racketeering. Gotti avoids a criminal conviction when the case goes to trial, but the prosecution reveals that his close associate, Wilfred "Willy Boy" Johnson, is an informant; Gotti agrees to give him a “pass” for betraying the family, but does not object when Johnson is murdered. Gotti learns that Castellano plans to reorganize the Gambino family and possibly break up Gotti's crew, due to Gotti defying his authority. Dying of cancer, Dellacroce helps Gotti secure the approval of the Five Families to eliminate Castellano, who fails to attend Dellacroce's funeral.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: On December 16, 1985, Gotti has Castellano and his bodyguard gunned down at Sparks Steak House in midtown Manhattan, and is named the new head of the Gambino family, capturing the attention of the press and the public as “the real-life Godfather”. Rival boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante plots with Casso to eliminate Gotti, and DiCicco is killed by a car bomb that Ruggerio believes was meant for Gotti. Casso survives an unsanctioned hit, tracking down the hitman and torturing him into revealing he was sent by Ruggerio. Gotti makes peace with Gigante, and casts Ruggerio out of his crew.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Escaping prosecution for the third time, Gotti is nicknamed “the Teflon Don” by the press for seemingly being untouchable by the law. Ruggiero dies of cancer in 1989, and Junior becomes a made man in the Gambino family and marries in 1990. On trial in 1992 for the fourth time, Gotti is charged with organizing Castellano's murder; underboss Sammy "The Bull" Gravano testifies against him, and Gotti is sentenced to life in prison. Junior assumes control as the organization is targeted by rivals and several family members are killed, and is himself taken into custody in 1998.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Gotti dies on June 10, 2002, from cancer. Junior chooses to leave his criminal life behind for the sake of his family, and after five trials, he goes free.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: In September 2010, Fiore Films announced that it had secured the rights from Gotti Jr. to produce a film about his life. The film, tentatively titled "Gotti: In the Shadow of My Father", was to be directed by Barry Levinson, who eventually left the project. Nick Cassavetes and Joe Johnston were then also attached at different points to direct, as were Al Pacino, Lindsay Lohan, and Ben Foster to star in various roles. Joe Pesci was cast as Angelo Ruggiero early in development and gained 30 pounds in order to properly portray him. After having his salary cut and being recast as Lucchese underboss Anthony Casso, he sued Fiore Films for $3 million; the case was settled out of court. Chazz Palminteri, who had played Paul Castellano in the TNT made-for-TV film "Boss of Bosses", was also initially cast to reprise Gotti's predecessor.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: On September 8, 2015, it was announced that the project was moving forward with Kevin Connolly as director. Emmett/Furla/Oasis Films, Fiore Films and Herrick Entertainment would be financing the film, with Lionsgate Premiere handling the domestic distribution rights.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: On July 27, 2016, the complete cast for the film was announced. It included Kelly Preston as Gotti's wife Victoria; Stacy Keach as Aniello Dellacroce, the underboss of the Gambino crime family who mentored Gotti; Pruitt Taylor Vince as Angelo Ruggiero, a deferential friend of Gotti; Spencer Lofranco as John Gotti Jr., Gotti's son; William DeMeo as Sammy Gravano, Gotti's right-hand man who later became an FBI informant and helped them in bringing down Gotti; Leo Rossi as Bartholomew "Bobby" Boriello, Gotti's enforcer; Victor Gojcaj as Father Murphy, with Tyler Jon Olson and Megan Leonard.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Principal photography on the film began in Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 25, 2016, with locations including Springfield Township. The locations were staged to resemble the setting of the film, New York City. Filming also took place on Jonfred Court in Finneytown, and Indian Hill. Filming was also done at Butler County Jail.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: The film's shooting was previously scheduled to take place in New York City, because of its setting there, but it was relocated to Cincinnati. One reason to relocate was Ohio's revised Motion Picture Tax Credit to benefit films' creators. Filming for some scenes took place in Brooklyn on February 21, 2017, which concluded principal photography.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: The film was originally set to be released in a limited release and through video on demand on December 15, 2017, through Lionsgate Premiere. Producers began seeking a new distributor in order for the film to receive a wide theatrical release, as opposed to the original release it was initially intended to have, with Lionsgate selling the film back to the producers and studio. On March 12, 2018, Connolly announced that the film would be released on June 15, 2018. On April 12, 2018, it was announced Vertical Entertainment was the film's new distributor. On April 25, 2018, it was announced that MoviePass Ventures, a subsidiary of MoviePass, acquired an equity stake in the film and will participate in the revenue generated from the film. The film premiered at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2018.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: "Gotti" grossed $4.3 million in the United States, and $1.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $6.1 million, against a production budget of $10 million.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: "Gotti" began its limited release in 503 theaters and was projected to make $1–2 million in its opening weekend. It made $105,000 from Thursday night previews at 350 theaters and a total of $1.7 million in its opening weekend, finishing 12th. According to their own reports, MoviePass accounted for 40% of tickets sold, leading one independent studio head to tell "Deadline Hollywood": "It used to be in distribution, we'd all gossip whether a studio was buying tickets to their own movie to goose their opening. But in the case of MoviePass, there's no secret: They're literally buying the tickets to their own movie!" In its second weekend the film dropped 53% and made $812,000, finishing 12th.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: "Gotti" was not screened in advance for critics, but the Cannes premiere was attended by reviewers from IndieWire and "The Hollywood Reporter", who both gave the film negative reviews. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus simply reads, "". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 24 out of 100, based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Jordan Mintzer of "The Hollywood Reporter" gave the film a negative review, writing: "it's not only that the film is pretty terrible: poorly written, devoid of tension, ridiculous in spots and just plain dull in others. But the fact that it mostly portrays John Gotti as a loving family man and altogether likable guy, and his son John Gotti Jr. as a victim of government persecution, may be a first in the history of the genre." The "New York Post"s Johnny Oleksinski called the film "the worst mob movie of all-time" and wrote, "the long-awaited biopic about the Gambino crime boss' rise from made man to top dog, took four directors, 44 producers and eight years to make. It shows. The finished product belongs in a cement bucket at the bottom of the river." Writing for "Rolling Stone", Peter Travers gave the film one out of four stars and said, "Insane testimonials from Gotti supporters at the end are as close as this [film] will ever get to good reviews."


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Nick Schager, writing for "The Daily Beast", said that the film "validates the oft-heard criticism that mob movies invariably glorify their subjects", adding: "The film does its best to make sure Gotti comes off as a noble and ruthless warrior-leader who ... was good for the community because he only killed his own and kept a lid on neighborhood crime." He concluded: Listen to me, and listen to me good. You never gonna see another guy like me if you live to be five thousand,' Travolta's Teflon Don boasts in the final scene. With any luck, we'll never see another mob-movie misfire like this either."


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Richard Roeper of the "Chicago Sun-Times" was more positive in his review of the film, describing it as "an entertaining and well-acted but uneven B-movie."


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Observers were quick to note a large disparity on Rotten Tomatoes, between the audience approval score of 80% and the 0% critics' score during the film's opening weekend. The audience score has since dropped 35 points to a score of 45%.


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: On June 19, Dan Murrell of Screen Junkies noted that the disparity "made no sense" and suspected vote manipulation on behalf of the studio. Accusations against the production studio and marketing team increased after the release of a marketing push suspected to be trying to hit back at the critics. The campaign proclaimed to consumers to ignore the "trolls behind a keyboard", and "Audiences loved "Gotti" but critics don't want you to see it ... The question is why??? Trust the people and see it for yourself!" Observers also noted the abnormally high number of reviews, 7,000, compared to other films that did better at the box office that weekend, such as "Incredibles 2" which logged 7,600 reviews and grossed 105 times more than "Gotti".


title: Gotti (2018 film)

text: Rotten Tomatoes staff issued a statement stating they didn't find any evidence of tampering and that "All of the ratings and reviews were left by active accounts." In June 2018, it was noted that 32 of the 54 written reviews were found to be from first-time reviewers on the site, who had also only left a review for "Gotti" itself, and 45 of the accounts were created the same month. Many of the accounts also wrote a review for the positively praised "American Animals", which along with "Gotti" are the only films to be owned by MoviePass through its company MoviePass Ventures, which was responsible for 40% of tickets sold. Jim Vorel of "Paste" suggested this was done to try to prop up MoviePass's "unlimited movies" business model.


title: Bad Brains

text: Bad Brains are an American rock band formed in Washington, D.C. in 1976. Originally a jazz fusion band under the name Mind Power, they are widely regarded as pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members have objected to the use of this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of other genres like funk, heavy metal, hip hop, and soul. "Rolling Stone" magazine called them "the mother of all black hard-rock bands", and they have been cited as a seminal influence to numerous subgenres of heavy metal, including thrash/speed metal, alternative metal, funk metal and rap/nu metal. Bad Brains are followers of the Rastafari movement.


title: Bad Brains

text: Bad Brains have released nine studio albums. They have broken up and reformed several times over their career, sometimes with different singers or drummers. Their classic lineup includes singer H.R., guitarist Dr. Know, bassist Darryl Jenifer, and drummer Earl Hudson. This lineup was intact until 1987 and has reunited periodically in the years since.


title: Bad Brains

text: Many notable bands and artists cite Bad Brains as musically influential to their music, including the Beastie Boys, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Guns N' Roses, Soundgarden, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, Faith No More, Rage Against the Machine, Deftones, Clutch, Green Day, The Offspring, The Roots, Lamb of God, No Doubt, Anthrax, Living Colour and Fishbone.


title: Bad Brains

text: The band's origins date to 1976, when the members first came together as a jazz fusion band called Mind Power, in the mold of bands such as Return to Forever and Mahavishnu Orchestra. The group included lead guitarist Dr. Know (Gary Miller), bassist Darryl Jenifer, and brothers Paul Hudson (later known as H.R.) on rhythm guitar and Earl Hudson on drums.


title: Bad Brains

text: In 1977, the band's friend Sid McCray introduced them to punk rock. Mind Power decided to switch their sound to hardcore punk and changed their name to Bad Brains, after the Ramones song "Bad Brain." Despite their burgeoning punk sound, after seeing Bob Marley in concert the band also became interested in reggae music and the Rastafari movement. McCray was briefly the singer for the new hardcore punk incarnation of the band, but he soon departed, and H.R. switched from guitar to lead vocals.


title: Bad Brains

text: The band gained a fan base in Washington D.C. due to their high-energy performances and occasional reggae songs. In 1979 they were blacklisted from many Washington area clubs due to their destructive fans; this was later addressed in their song "Banned in D.C.". By 1980 the band relocated to New York City, where they would serve as a catalyst for that city's burgeoning hardcore scene.