[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Radical Republicans
The Radicals, a faction of the regular Republican Party, came into prominence on the national level after 1860. They never achieved majority status within Republican ranks, but were successful with manipulating the other factions to their advantage (Trefousse, 44). Radical influence was especially strong in the New England states. Their basic aims included the following:
- They tended to view the Civil War as a crusade against the institution of slavery and supported immediate emancipation
- They advocated enlistment of black soldiers
- They led the fight for ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Prominent Radical Republicans included Benjamin F. Wade, Benjamin Butler, Horace Greeley, Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens. During the war, the Radicals were critical of Abraham Lincoln, a member of their own party. The chief complaints about the president were that:
- Lincoln had thwarted the emancipation efforts of two of his military commanders, John C. Frémont and David Hunter
- Lincoln had (initially) opposed the use of black soldiers in the Union Army
- Lincoln’s Reconstruction Plan was too lenient.
In the traditional view of Reconstruction, Thaddeus Stevens was the evil genius who wrecked President Andrew Johnson's lenient policy and turned the South over to the depredations of "black rule." Today, he is seen more sympathetically, as an outspoken foe of slavery who sought to accord blacks the rights of American citizenship and to provide an economic underpinning for their freedom. During the Civil War and Reconstruction, Stevens came into his own as the most radical of the Radical Republicans. His personal qualities—honesty, imperviousness to criticism or flattery, willingness to use daring means to achieve his ends—won the respect even of political foes. A master of parliamentary tactics, he knew when to bully the House and when to compromise. His quick wit and sarcastic tongue were legendary—"I would sooner get into difficulty with a porcupine," one colleague remarked......
