earnings.50 Stevens, though too radical to be accepted warmly by colleagues in the legal profession, was nevertheless the acknowledged leader of the Lancaster bar and one of the outstanding barristers in the State.51 He had the best law library in the region, and collected books on history and politics

- rent's Old Thad Stevens: A Story of Ambition shows any evidence of extensive research into Stevens's role in the politics of Lancas- ter County, Pennsylvania, from his removal to Lancaster in 1842 until his death in August, 1868. Stevens's work as a member of the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of