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Stevens usually made money gambling, which he also gave to charity.

All historical reports indicate otherwise. Besides, it is a simple statistical fact that no habitual gambler, so long as he plays by the rules and does not score a single chance outlier that distorts all other losses (i.e. a winning lotto ticket), will never in the long run make money. The law of averages is simply against him and the more "tries" that are made at a given test, the closer its summary data will reflect the probability of that test. Since probability in games of chance are ALWAYS against the gambler and in favor of the house, the long run honest gambler will fall below the breakeven threshhold.

There's a famous story of a black minister asking him for a donation on his way home from gambling. Stevens made a game of giving him the first bill that he could fish out of his pocket. It was a $100 bill, and the minister declined to accept so much (several months salary for a working man), but Stevens insisted, quoting the title of a classic hymn "God Works In Mysterious Ways, His Wonders To Peform".

Cute, but entirely anecdotal. Did you quote that out of your own book as well?

"entirely anecdotal" -- All you do is quote (not so cute) anecdotes to substantiate the existence of those imaginary black rebels. Yesterday, you cited an April 1865 report from a U.S. Army officer that he had captured 300 or so black teamsters along with 320 rebel soldiers, and then just insisted that he was mistaken, because those teamsters were really some Confederate military unit.

Again, very Clintonesque of you!

Since you know everything about everything, the information below is for others to learn about Thaddeus Stevens' favorite form of gambling, faro:

"Faro is an old game, with roots going back to the 15th Century and a game called "Basset". It attained its modern form at the court of Louis XIV. Despite this distinguished pedigree, its appeal in 19th Century America ran to all classes of society, from the banker to the '49er and was commonly called, among the "baser sort", "Bucking the Tiger". Faro is not much played today, as it is a banking game and gambling houses tend to favor games where the odds are more clearly in favor of the house. In an honest Faro game, the punter's chances are just a little short of even of coming out ahead."

Not only was Stevens a renowned defense attorney and parliamentarian, he was also a financial whiz, easily capable of prevailing over the yokels at such a math-oriented game. But you already knew that too.