The Lincoln Administration workers offered to appoint Stevens to various government jobs including those of consul general to Paris, commissioner of Internal Revenue and registrar of the Treasury. Stevens visit Lincoln on the morning before his assassination to urge him to name a day of national rejoicing over the peace at the end of the war. Stevens joined his family in 1868 for a five-year tour of Europe where he witnessed the downfall of the Second French Empire, fled Paris during the Franco-Prussian War and helped organize American aid to the French after the Siege of Paris. He returned to New York to take an active role in business, government and the study of U.S. history. Writing Stevens' study of history led him to write many articles and several books about the subject. He authored articles from 1877 to 1893 for The Magazine of American History with Notes and Queries, and in 1882 and 1890 for Harper's Magazine. Among his books, Stevens authored a biography about U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin in 1883 which was published by Houghton, Mifflin and Co. as part of its American Statesmen Series. Sons of the Revolution After Stevens was denied membership with The Society of the Cincinnati because of its rules of primogeniture, he founded Sons of the Revolution on February 22, 1876 at New York. He intended to include members by recognizing any descendant of a revolutionary ancestor, and held a preliminary meeting on December 18, 1875 at New-York Historical Society at New York. At a secondary meeting held in January 1876, the first SR constitution was adopted and a flier which invited members was published. The fledgling group languished for several years until December 4, 1883 when an elaborate "turtle feast" dinner was held in the Long Room of Fraunces Tavern at lower Manhattan in New York to commemorate the centennial of the dinner and speech of Washington where he bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army in the room by saying "[w]ith a heart full of love and gratitude, I now take leave of you. I most devoutly wish that your latter days may be as prosperous and happy as your former ones have been glorious and honorable." At the end of the 1883 dinner, the SR constitution was signed by more than 40 new members, and the group was reorganized as the Sons of the Revolution