Radical Republicans

Examples of Radical Republicans in the following topics:

• The Radical Record

  • Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way to suffrage and legal equality for freedmen.
  • The Radical Republicans were a faction of American politicians within the Republican Party of the United States from about 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in 1877.
  • The Radical Republicans were generally in control of policy, although they had to compromise with the moderate Republicans.
  • Radical Republicans in Congress disagreed.
  • Many of the ambitions of the Radical Republicans were, in the end, undermined and unfulfilled.

• Union Politics

  • Within the Republican Party, however, the Radical Republicans, led by House Republican leader Thaddeus Stevens, put strong pressure on Lincoln to end slavery quickly.
  • One of the Radicals Republicans' most persuasive arguments was that the rebel economy would be destroyed were it to lose slave labor.
  • A faction within the Republican Party, called the "Radical Republicans," also opposed the war.
  • Radical Republicans were generally critical of President Lincoln, but he still appointed members of all political factions to his cabinet.
  • Stevens was a leader among the Radical Republicans, supporters of emancipation.

• Lincoln's Plan and Congress's Response

  • During this time, the Radical Republicans used Congress to block Lincoln's moderate approach.
  • The Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln's plan because they thought it too lenient toward the South.
  • Although the Radical Republicans were the minority party in Congress, they managed to sway many moderates in the postwar years and came to dominate Congress in later sessions.
  • In the summer of 1864, the Radical Republicans passed a new bill to counter the plan, known as the "Wade-Davis Bill."
  • The Radical Republican vision for Reconstruction, also called "Radical Reconstruction," was further bolstered in the 1866 election, when more Republicans took office in Congress.

• Johnson's Battle with Congress

  • The Radical Reconstruction era was a period when the Radical Republicans held control of Congress and directed Reconstruction efforts.
  • During the era known as "Radical Reconstruction," Radical Republicans in Congress, led by Stevens and Sumner, paved the way for male freedmen suffrage.
  • Although the Radical Republicans were generally in control, they had to compromise with the moderate Republicans and Democrats in Congress.
  • As a result, Radical Republicans found themselves virtually powerless.
  • With the Radicals in control, Congress passed four statutes, known as "Reconstruction Acts," on March 2, 1867.

• The Triumph of Congressional Reconstruction

  • Radical Reconstruction was a period of the Reconstruction Era during which the Radical Republicans held control of Reconstruction policies.
  • Radical Reconstruction was a period following the Civil War during which radical Republicans controlled Reconstruction policies, though they often clashed with President Johnson over pieces of legislation.
  • Radical Republicans in Congress, however, led by Stevens and Sumner, opened the way for male freedmen suffrage.
  • They were generally in control of Reconstruction legislation, although they often had to compromise with the moderate Republicans.
  • With the Radicals in control, Congress passed four statutes known as Reconstruction Acts on March 2, 1867.

• The Grant Years

  • After the war ended, with the North victorious, the fear among Radical Republicans was that President Johnson too quickly assumed that slavery and Confederate nationalism were dead and that the Southern states could return to the Union.
  • The Radical Republicans sought out a candidate for president who would support their vision for Reconstruction.
  • Grant won favor with the Radicals after he allowed Edwin M.
  • Stanton, a Radical, to be reinstated as secretary of war.
  • Grant had alienated large numbers of leading Republicans, including many Radicals, with the corruption of his administration and his use of federal soldiers to prop up Radical state regimes in the South.

• Reform and the Election of 1872

  • With these goals achieved, the tenets of republicanism demanded that federal military troops be removed from the South, where they were propping up allegedly corrupt Republican regimes.
  • The Liberal Republicans successfully ran B.G.
  • The Radical Republicans, who were content with their Reconstruction program for the South, renominated Grant, with Representative Henry Wilson as his running mate in 1872.
  • The Republicans favored high tariffs and a continuation of Radical Reconstruction policies that supported five military districts in the Southern states.
  • Grant also favored amnesty for former Confederate soldiers such as the Liberal Republicans.

• The Rise of the Republican Party

  • The Republican Party was formed out of a loose coalition of Northern ex-Whigs who resented Southern political power.
  • Republicans were opposed to the perceived "anti-modernity" of the Southern slave culture and rallied behind the slogan of “Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men,” which they argued was representative of classical American republicanism.
  • This ideology cast the Republicans as the true heirs of the Jeffersonians.
  • Opponents of the expansion of slavery included those who resented Southern political power, were committed to free labor as the future of American industry, or were morally opposed to slavery itself (for example, abolitionists from the more radical wings of the Republican Party).
  • Explain why the Republican Party emerged after the collapse of the Whig Party

• The Republican Alternative

  • The Democratic-Republican Party, was an American political party founded around 1791 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
  • The Republican Party, usually called the Democratic-Republican Party, was an American political party founded about 1791 by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
  • In 1801, the Democrat-Republicans came to power with Jefferson's election to president.
  • Despite the fact that Britain was America's leading trading partner, Republicans feared that trade alliances with Britain would undermine the American republican project.
  • Federalists spread rumors that the Republicans were radicals who would ruin the country, while the Republicans accused Federalists of destroying republican values by favoring aristocratic, anti-republican principles.

• John Randolph and the Old Republicans

  • Virginia congressman John Randolph of Roanoke was the leader of the "Old Republican" faction of Democratic-Republicans that insisted on a strict adherence to the Constitution and opposed any innovations.
  • The term was first used in 1804, referring to moderates in Pennsylvania and especially a faction of the Democratic-Republican party calling itself "The Society of Constitutional Republicans."
  • Between 1801 and 1806, rival factions of Jeffersonian Republicans in Philadelphia engaged in intense public debate and vigorous political competition that pitted radical democrats against moderates, who defended the traditional rights of the propertied classes.
  • The radicals, led by William Duane, publisher of the Jeffersonian publication the Aurora, pushed for legislative reforms that would increase popular representation and the power of the poor and laboring classes.
  • Moderates successfully outmaneuvered their radical opponents and kept the Pennsylvania legislature friendly to emergent liberal capitalism.