Radical Republicans
Radical Republicans | |
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Leader(s) | • Elections |
The Radical Republicans (later also known as "
During the war, Radicals opposed Lincoln's initial selection of General George B. McClellan for top command of the major eastern Army of the Potomac and Lincoln's efforts in 1864 to bring seceded Southern states back into the Union as quickly and easily as possible. Lincoln later recognized McClellan as unfit and relieved him of his command. The Radicals tried passing their own Reconstruction plan through Congress in 1864. Lincoln vetoed it, as he was putting his own policy in effect through his power as military commander-in-chief. Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865.[8] Radicals pushed for the uncompensated abolition of slavery, while Lincoln wanted to pay slave owners who were loyal to the Union. They keenly fought Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson. After Johnson vetoed various congressional acts favoring citizenship for freedmen, the Radicals attempted to remove him from office through impeachment, which failed by one vote in 1868.
Radical coalition
The Radicals were heavily influenced by religious ideals, and many were Protestant reformers who saw slavery as evil and the Civil War as God's punishment for slavery.[9]: 1ff. The term "
The Radicals came to majority power in Congress in the elections of 1866 after several episodes of violence led many to conclude that President Johnson's weaker reconstruction policies were insufficient. These episodes included the
[T]he word Radical as applied to political parties and politicians ... means one who is in favor of going to the root of things; who is thoroughly in earnest; who desires that slavery should be abolished, that every disability connected therewith should be obliterated.[12]
The Radicals were never formally organized and there was movement in and out of the group. Their most successful and systematic leader was Pennsylvania Congressman
On issues not concerned with the destruction of the Confederacy, the eradication of slavery and the rights of Freedmen, Radicals took positions all over the political map. For example, Radicals who had once been Whigs generally supported high tariffs and ex-Democrats generally opposed them. Some men were for hard money and no inflation while others were for soft money and inflation. The argument, common in the 1930s, that the Radicals were primarily motivated by a desire to selfishly promote Northeastern business interests, has seldom been argued by historians for a half-century.[14] On foreign policy issues, the Radicals and moderates generally did not take distinctive positions.[15]
Wartime
After the 1860 elections, moderate Republicans dominated the Congress. Radical Republicans were often critical of Lincoln, who they believed was too slow in freeing slaves and supporting their legal equality. Lincoln put all factions in his cabinet, including Radicals like
Reconstruction policy
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Opposing Lincoln
The Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln's terms for reuniting the United States during
Opposing Johnson
After
Control of Congress
After the
Impeachment
The Radical plan was to remove Johnson from office, but the first effort at the impeachment trial of President Johnson went nowhere. After Johnson violated the
Supporting Grant
General
The Republicans split in 1872 over Grant's reelection, with the Liberal Republicans, including Sumner, opposing Grant with a new third party. The Liberals lost badly, but the economy then went into a depression in 1873 and in 1874 the Democrats swept back into power and ended the reign of the Radicals.[21]
The Radicals tried to protect the new coalition, but one by one the Southern states voted the Republicans out of power until in 1876 only three were left (Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina), where the Army still protected them. The 1876 presidential election was so close that it was decided in those three states despite massive fraud and illegalities on both sides. The Compromise of 1877 called for the election of a Republican as president and his withdrawal of the troops. Republican Rutherford B. Hayes withdrew the troops and the Republican state regimes immediately collapsed.[22]
Reconstruction of the South
In 1865 Radical Republicans increasingly took control, led by Sumner and Stevens. They demanded harsher measures in the South, more protection for the Freedmen and more guarantees that the Confederate nationalism was eliminated. Following Lincoln's assassination in 1865, Andrew Johnson, a former War Democrat, became president.
The Radicals at first admired Johnson's hard-line talk. When they discovered his ambivalence on key issues by his veto of
By 1866, the Radical Republicans supported federal
The Radicals were opposed by former slaveowners and
The Radical Republicans led the
End of Reconstruction
By 1872, the Radicals were increasingly splintered and in the
In state after state in the South, the so-called
Historiography
In the aftermath of the Civil War and Reconstruction, new battles took place over the construction of memory and the meaning of historical events. The earliest historians to study Reconstruction and the Radical Republican participation in it were members of the Dunning School, led by William Archibald Dunning and John W. Burgess.[25] The Dunning School, based at Columbia University in the early 20th century, saw the Radicals as motivated by an irrational hatred of the Confederacy and a lust for power at the expense of national reconciliation.[25] According to Dunning School historians, the Radical Republicans reversed the gains Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson had made in reintegrating the South, established corrupt shadow governments made up of Northern carpetbaggers and Southern scalawags in the former Confederate states, and to increase their power, foisted political rights on the newly freed slaves that they were allegedly unprepared for or incapable of utilizing.[26] For the Dunning School, the Radical Republicans made Reconstruction a dark age that only ended when Southern whites rose up and reestablished a "home rule" free of Northern, Republican, and black influence.[27]
In the 1930s, the Dunning-oriented approaches were rejected by self-styled "revisionist" historians, led by
The role of Radical Republicans in creating public school systems, charitable institutions, and other social infrastructure in the South was downplayed by the Dunning School of historians. Since the 1950s, the impact of the moral crusade of the civil rights movement led historians to reevaluate the role of Radical Republicans during Reconstruction, and their reputation improved.[32] These historians, sometimes referred to as neoabolitionist because they reflected and admired the values of the abolitionists of the 19th century, argued that the Radical Republicans' advancement of civil rights and suffrage for African Americans following emancipation was more significant than the financial corruption which took place. They also pointed to the African Americans' central, active roles in reaching toward education (both individually and by creating public school systems) and their desire to acquire land as a means of self-support.[33]
Democrats retook power across the South and held it for decades, restricting African American voters and largely extinguishing their voting rights over the years and decades following Reconstruction. In 2004, Richardson argued that Northern Republicans came to see most blacks as potentially dangerous to the economy because they might prove to be labor radicals in the tradition of the 1871 Paris Commune or Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and other violent American strikes of the 1870s. Meanwhile, it became clear to Northerners that the white South was not bent on revenge or the restoration of the Confederacy. Most of the Republicans who felt this way became opponents of Grant and entered the Liberal Republican camp in 1872.[34]
Notable Radical Republicans
- Amos Tappan Akerman: attorney general under the Grant administration who vigorously prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan in the South under the Enforcement Acts
- Adelbert Ames: Governor of Mississippi in 1868–1870 and 1874–1876
- James Mitchell Ashley: representative from Ohio[35]
- John Armor Bingham: representative from Ohio and principal framer of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
- Austin Blair: Governor of Michigan in 1861–1865
- George Sewall Boutwell: representative from Massachusetts and Treasury Secretary under President Grant from 1869 to 1873[36]
- Knoxville Whig, Tennessee governor and senator[37]
- Rufus Bullock: Governor of Georgia 1868–1871[38]
- Benjamin Butler: Massachusetts politician-soldier who was hated by rebels for restoring control in New Orleans[36]
- Zachariah Chandler: senator from Michigan and Secretary of the Interior under President Grant[39]
- Salmon P. Chase: Treasury Secretary under President Lincoln and Supreme Court chief justice who sought the 1868 Democratic nomination as a moderate[40][41]
- Schuyler Colfax: Speaker of the House (1863–1869) and the 17th Vice President of the United States (1869–1873). Was called the Christian statesman[9]: 239ff. [42]
- John Conness: senator from California
- John Creswell: elected Baltimore Representative to the House in 1863 during the Civil War, Creswell worked closely under Radical Republican Baltimore Representative Henry Winter Davisand was appointed Postmaster-General by President Grant in 1869, having vast patronage powers appointed many African Americans to federal postal positions in every state of the United States
- Edmund J. Davis: Governor of Texas in 1870–1874
- Henry Winter Davis: representative from Maryland[36]
- Charles Daniel Drake: senator from Missouri
- Reuben Fenton: Governor of New York in 1865–1868
- Thomas Clement Fletcher: Governor of Missouri in 1865–1869
- 1856 Republican presidential candidate[43]
- James A. Garfield: House of Representatives leader, less radical than others and president in 1881
- Radical Reconstruction, but over time became disenchanted with the corruption associated with it, and broke with the Radical Republicans to run for president on the Liberal Republican ticket against Grant.
- Joshua Reed Giddings: representative from Ohio and an early leading founder of the Ohio Republican Party[44]
- Ulysses S. Grant: president who signed Enforcement Acts and Civil Rights Act of 1875 while as General of the Army of the United States he supported Radical Reconstruction and civil rights for African Americans[45]
- Galusha A. Grow: representative from Pennsylvania and Speaker of the House 1861 to 1863[46]
- John Parker Hale: senator from New Hampshire and one of the first to make a stand against slavery. He was a former Democrat who broke away because of slavery[47]
- Hannibal Hamlin: Maine politician and vice president during Lincoln's first term[48]
- Friedrich Hecker: leader of the German-American Forty-Eighters
- James M. Hinds: Congressman from Arkansas, murdered by the Ku Klux Klan in 1868
- William Woods Holden: Governor of North Carolina in 1868–1871
- Jacob M. Howard: senator from Michigan[44]
- Timothy Otis Howe: senator from Wisconsin
- Presidential Reconstructionof the South.
- George Washington Julian: representative from Indiana and principal framer of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution[49]
- William Darrah Kelley: representative from Pennsylvania[36]
- Samuel J. Kirkwood: senator from Iowa
- James H. Lane: senator from Kansas and leader of the Jayhawkers abolitionist movement[44]
- John Alexander Logan: senator from Illinois
- Owen Lovejoy: representative from Illinois[50]
- David Medlock, Jr: Texas House of Representatives for the 12th Texas Legislature – 1870 to 1873 and was on the Federal Relations Committee.
- Oliver P. Morton: Governor of Indiana (1861–1867) and senator
- Franklin J. Moses, Jr.: Governor of South Carolina in 1872–1874
- Samuel Pomeroy: senator from Kansas[44]
- Harrison Reed: Governor of Florida in 1868–1873
- Samuel Shellabarger: representative from Ohio and principal drafter of the Civil Rights Act of 1871[36]
- Rufus Paine Spalding: representative from Ohio who took a leading role in the Congressional debates over Reconstruction
- Edwin McMasters Stanton: Secretary of War under the Lincoln and Johnson administrations
- Thaddeus Stevens: Radical leader in the House from Pennsylvania[51]
- Charles Sumner: senator from Massachusetts, dominant Radical leader in the Senate and specialist in foreign affairs who broke with Grant in 1872[52]
- Albion W. Tourgée: novelist[53]
- Lyman Trumbull: senator from Illinois with strongly anti-slavery sentiments, but otherwise moderate[54]
- Daniel Phillips Upham: Arkansas politician-soldier who was ruthless in a campaign that would temporarily rid the South of the Ku Klux Klan
- Benjamin Franklin Wade: senator from Ohio, next in line to become president if Johnson were removed[55]
- Henry Clay Warmoth: Governor of Louisiana in 1868–1872
- Elihu Benjamin Washburne: representative from Illinois
- George Henry Williams: senator from Oregon (1865–1871) and attorney general under President Grant
- Henry Wilson: Massachusetts Senator, chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee during the Civil War, and vice president under Grant[39]
- James F. Wilson: representative from Iowa, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee during the impeachment of President Johnson and senator from Iowa
- Richard Yates: Governor of Illinois in 1861–1865 and Senator[56]
Notes
- ^ "Radical Republican". britannica.com. Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
Radical Republican, during and after the American Civil War, a member of the Republican Party committed to emancipation of the slaves and later to the equal treatment and enfranchisement of the freed blacks.
- ^ "The Radical Republicans". battlefields.org. American Battlefield Trust. 30 June 2021. Retrieved June 13, 2022.
As the end of the war drew near, the Radicals strongly disagreed with President Lincoln's proposed post-war Reconstruction plans. Whereas Lincoln wanted to peacefully recreate coexistence between the Union and the Confederate States, the Radical Republicans felt that the rebel states needed a strong hand of justice and the administration of harsh punishments for their actions.
- ^ Foner, pp. 44, 429
- ^ Foner, p. 26
- ^ John G. Sproat, "'Old Ideals' and 'New Realities' in the Gilded Age," Reviews in American History, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 565–570
- S2CID 149957268.
- ^ Trefousse, Hans (1991). Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction. pp. 175–176.
- ^ William C. Harris, With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union (1997), pp. 123–170.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8131-6144-0.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), p. 20.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), p. 6.
- ^ Pamphlet bound into Cullom, Shelby Moore (1867). Speech of Hon. Shelby M. Cullom, of Illinois, on Reconstruction: Delivered in the House of Representatives, January 28, 1867. pp. 1–2.
- ISBN 978-0-8232-2711-2.
- JSTOR 1892388.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), pp. 21–32.
- ^ "1864: Lincoln v. McClellan". HarpWeek: Explore History. Retrieved 2010-05-31.
- ^ a b c Trefousse, Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian (2001)
- ^ Senator Chandler, a Radical leader, said the new president was "as radical as I am"; Blackburn (1969), p. 113; also McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction (1961) p. 60.
- ^ Michael Les Benedict, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (1999)
- ^ Brooks D. Simpson, The Reconstruction Presidents ch. 5, 6 (2009)
- ^ Trefousse (1969)
- ^ Scroggs (1958)
- ^ Patrick W. Riddleberger, "The Break in the Radical Ranks: Liberals vs Stalwarts in the Election of 1872." Journal of Negro History 44.2 (1959): 136–157 online.
- ^ John G. Sproat, "'Old Ideals' and 'New Realities' in the Gilded Age," Reviews in American History, Vol. 1, No. 4 (Dec., 1973), pp. 565–70
- ^ a b Foner, p. xi.
- ^ Foner, pp. xi–xii.
- ^ Foner, p. xii.
- JSTOR 1854452.
- JSTOR 2197687.
- JSTOR 1837439.
- ^ LaWanda Cox, "From Emancipation to Segregation" in John B. Boles and Evelyn Thomas Nolan, eds. Interpreting Southern History (1987), pp. 199–253
- ^ Cox, "From Emancipation to Segregation" (1987), p. 199
- Journal of American History1995 81(4): 1641–51.
- ^ Heather Cox Richardson, The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865–1901 (2004)
- ^ Trefousse (1969), p. 13.
- ^ a b c d e Trefousse (1969), p. 15.
- ^ William G. Brownlow pamphlet, 1869. The University of Memphis. Retrieved September 18, 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-7391-8508-7.
- ^ a b Trefousse (2014), p. xvii.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), p. 7.
- ^ Trefousse (2014), p. xv.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), pp. 14–15.
- ISBN 978-0-252-02688-1.
- ^ a b c d Trefousse (1969), p. 11.
- ISBN 978-0-684-84926-3.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), p. 14.
- ^ Trefousse (2014), p. xvi.
- ^ Trefousse (2014), p. xviii.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), p. 12.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), pp. 13–14.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), pp. 12–13.
- ISBN 978-0-8041-5392-8.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-9234-7.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), pp. 10–11.
- ^ Trefousse (1969), pp. 7–8.
- ^ Reavis, L. U. (1881). The Life and Public Services of Richard Yates, the War Governor of Illinois: A Lecture Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Springfield, Illinois, Tuesday Evening, March 1st, 1881. J.H. Chambers & Company. p. 30 – via Google Books.
References and further reading
Secondary sources
- Belz, Herman (1998). Abraham Lincoln, Constitutionalism and Equal Rights in the Civil War Era. Fordham University Press.
- Belz, Herman (1978). Emancipation and Equal Rights: Politics and Constitutionalism in the Civil War Era.
- Belz, Herman (2000). A New Birth of Freedom: The Republican Party and Freedman's Rights, 1861–1866.
- Benedict, Michael Les (1999). The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson.
- Blackburn, George M. (April 1969). "Radical Republican Motivation: A Case History". The Journal of Negro History. 54 (2): 109–126. S2CID 149744005. Re Michigan Senator Zachariah Chandler
- Bowers, Claude G. (1929). The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln. 567 pages, intense anti-Radical narrative by prominent Democrat
- Castel, Albert E. (1979). The Presidency of Andrew Johnson. ISBN 978-0700601905.
- Donald, David (1970). Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man. Major critical analysis.
- Donald, David (1996). Lincoln. A major scholarly biography
- ISBN 978-0684824901.
- Foner, Eric (2002). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. Major synthesis; many prizes
- ISBN 978-0-06-096431-3. Abridged version
- Harris, William C. (1997). With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union. Lincoln as moderate and opponent of Radicals.
- Howard, Victor B. Religion and the Radical Republican Movement, 1860–1870 (University Press of Kentucky, 2014) online
- Lyons, Philip B. Statesmanship and Reconstruction: Moderate versus Radical Republicans on Restoring the Union after the Civil War (Lexington Books, 2014).
- ISBN 978-0393013726. Pulitzer Prize.
- McKitrick, Eric L. (1961). Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction.
- Milton, George Fort (1930). The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals. Hostile
- Nevins, Allan (1936). Hamilton Fish: The Inner History of the Grant Administration. Pulitzer Prize.
- Randall, James G. (1955). Lincoln the President: Last Full Measure. Fourth and final volume of a biography. The main title of all four volumes is Lincoln the President; the fourth volume was completed by Richard N. Current upon Randall's death.
- Rhodes, James Ford (1920). History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volumes 6 and 7. Highly detailed political narrative.
- Richards, Leonard L. Who Freed the Slaves?: The Fight Over the Thirteenth Amendment (University of Chicago Press, 2015).
- Richardson, Heather Cox (2007). West from Appomattox: The Reconstruction of America after the Civil War.
- Richardson, Heather Cox (2004). The Death of Reconstruction: Race, Labor, and Politics in the Post-Civil War North, 1865–1901.
- Riddleberger, Patrick W. (April 1959). "The Break in the Radical Ranks: Liberals vs Stalwarts in the Election of 1872". The Journal of Negro History. 44 (2): 136–157. S2CID 149957268.
- Ross, Earle Dudley (1910). The Liberal Republican Movement. Scholarly history
- Stampp, Kenneth M. (1967). The Era of Reconstruction, 1865–1877.
- ISBN 978-0807819661.
- Simpson, Brooks D. (1998). The Reconstruction Presidents. ISBN 978-0700608966.
- Summers, Mark Wahlgren. Railroads, Reconstruction, and the Gospel of Prosperity: Aid Under the Radical Republicans, 1865–1877 (Princeton University Press, 2014) online.
- Trefousse, Hans (1991). Historical Dictionary of Reconstruction.
- Trefousse, Hans L. (1969). The Radical Republicans: Lincoln's Vanguard for Racial Justice. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Favorable to Radicals
- Trefousse, Hans L. (2001). Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth-Century Egalitarian. Favorable biography.
- Trefousse, Hans L. (2014). The Radical Republicans. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8041-5392-8.
- Williams, T. Harry (1941). Lincoln and the Radicals. Hostile to Radicals
- Zuczek, Richard (2006). Encyclopedia of the Reconstruction Era. 2 vol.
Historiography and memory
- Bogue, Allan G. (June 1983). "Historians and Radical Republicans: A Meaning for Today". Journal of American History. 70 (1): 7–34. JSTOR 1890519.
- Keith, LeeAnna. When It Was Grand: The Radical Republican History of the Civil War (2020) excerpt; also online review
- JSTOR 4232573.
- Leipold, Bruno, Karma Nabulsi, and Stuart White, eds. Radical republicanism: Recovering the tradition's popular heritage (Oxford University Press, 2020) online.
- Scroggs, Jack B. (November 1958). "Southern Reconstruction: A Radical View". The Journal of Southern History. 24 (4): 407–429. JSTOR 2954670.
Primary sources
- Harper's Weekly news magazine
- Barnes, William H., ed. History of the Thirty-ninth Congress of the United States. (1868) useful summary of Congressional activity.
- Blaine, James.Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield. With a review of the events which led to the political revolution of 1860 (1886). By Republican Congressional leader full text online
- Fleming, Walter L. Documentary History of Reconstruction: Political, Military, Social, Religious, Educational, and Industrial 2 vol (1906). Uses broad collection of primary sources; vol 1 on national politics; vol 2 on states full text of vol. 2
- Hyman, Harold M., ed. The Radical Republicans and Reconstruction, 1861–1870. (1967), collection of long political speeches and pamphlets.
- Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction (1875), large collection of speeches and primary documents, 1865–1870, complete text online. [The copyright has expired.]
- Palmer, Beverly Wilson and Holly Byers Ochoa, eds. The Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens 2 vol (1998), 900 pp; his speeches plus and letters to and from Stevens
- Palmer, Beverly Wilson, ed/ The Selected Letters of Charles Sumner 2 vol (1990); vol 2 covers 1859–1874
- Charles Sumner, "Our Domestic Relations: or, How to Treat the Rebel States" Atlantic Monthly September 1863, early Radical manifesto
Yearbooks
- American Annual Cyclopedia...1868 (1869), online, highly detailed compendium of facts and primary sources; details on every state
- American Annual Cyclopedia...for 1869 (1870) online edition
- Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...for 1870 (1871)
- American Annual Cyclopedia...for 1872 (1873)
- Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...for 1873 (1879) online edition
- Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...for 1875 (1877)
- Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia ...for 1876 (1885) online edition
- Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia...for 1877 (1878)