Emerson Etheridge of Tennessee was chosen Clerk, in compliment to his fidelity and courage as a Union man.
The House was filled with able men, many of whom had parliamentary experience.

The natural leader, who assumed his place by common consent, was Thaddeus Stevens, a man of strong peculiarities of character, able, trained, and fearless.

Born in Vermont and educated at Dartmouth, he had passed all his adult years in Pennsylvania, and was thoroughly identified with the State which he had served with distinction both in her own Legislature and in Congress.

He had the reputation of being somewhat unscrupulous as to political methods, somewhat careless in personal conduct, somewhat lax in personal morals; but to the one great object of his life, the destruction of slavery and the elevation of the slave, he was supremely devoted.

From the pursuit of that object nothing could deflect him.