Radical Republicans
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. They called themselves "Radicals" and were opposed during the Civil War by moderate Republicans (led by Abraham Lincoln), conservative Republicans, and the largely proslavery (and later anti-Reconstruction) Democratic Party. Radical Republicans strongly opposed slavery during the war and after the war distrusted ex-Confederates, demanding harsh policies for punishing the former rebels, and emphasizing equality, civil rights, and voting rights for the freedmen. By 1866, the Radical Republicans supported federal civil rights for freedmen, which President Johnson opposed. By 1867, they defined terms for suffrage for freed slaves and limited early suffrage for many ex-Confederates. While Johnson opposed the Radical Republicans on some issues, the decisive congressional elections of 1866 gave the Radicals enough votes to enact their legislation over Johnson's vetoes. Through elections in the South, ex-Confederate officeholders were gradually replaced with a coalition of freedmen, Southern whites (scalawags), and Northerners who had resettled in the South (carpetbaggers).
Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens
Concerned that President Johnson was attempting to subvert congressional authority, Republicans in Congress took control of Reconstruction policies after the election of 1866. Radical Republicans, led by Charles Sumner and Thaddeus Stevens, opened the way to suffrage for male freedmen. As the chief Radical leader in the Senate during Reconstruction, Sumner fought hard to provide equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen on the grounds that "consent of the governed" was a basic principle of American republicanism, and to block ex-Confederates from power so they would not reverse the gains made from the Union's victory in the Civil War. Sumner, teaming with House leader Thaddeus Stevens, battled Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction plans and sought to impose a Radical program on the South. The Radical Republicans were generally in control of policy, although they had to compromise with the moderate Republicans. The Democrats in Congress had almost no power. Historians generally refer to this period as "Radical Reconstruction."
Charles Sumner
Charles Sumner (January 6, 1811–March 11, 1874) was an American politician and senator from Massachusetts. During Reconstruction, he fought to minimize the power of the ex-Confederates and to guarantee equal rights to the freedmen.
Battles over Reconstruction Policy
During fall 1865, as a response to the Black Codes and worrisome signs of Southern recalcitrance, the Radical Republicans blocked the readmission of the former rebellious states to the Congress. Johnson, however, was content with allowing former Confederate states into the Union as long as their state governments adopted the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery. By December 6, 1865, the amendment was ratified, and Johnson considered Reconstruction over. Radical Republicans in Congress disagreed. They rejected Johnson's moderate Reconstruction efforts, and organized the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, a 15-member panel to devise more stringent Reconstruction requirements for the Southern states to be restored to the Union.
In January 1866, Congress renewed the Freedmen's Bureau, which Johnson vetoed in February. Although Johnson sympathized with the plights of the freedmen, he was against federal assistance. An attempt to override the veto failed on February 20, 1866. This veto shocked the congressional Radicals. In response, both the Senate and House passed a joint resolution not to allow any senator or representative seat admittance until Congress decided when Reconstruction was finished.
Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, leader of the moderate Republicans, took the Black Codes as an affront. He proposed the first Civil Rights Law, because the abolition of slavery was empty if laws were to be enacted and enforced depriving persons of African descent of privileges which were essential to free citizens. The law stated that African Americans were to be granted equal rights as citizens. Congress later passed the Civil Rights Bill. Although strongly urged by moderates in Congress to sign the Civil Rights Bill, Johnson broke decisively with them by vetoing it on March 27, 1866. His veto message objected to the measure because it conferred citizenship on the freedmen at a time when 11 out of 36 states were unrepresented and attempted to fix by Federal law, "a perfect equality of the white and black races in every State of the Union." Johnson said it was an invasion by federal authority of the rights of the United States. It had no warrant in the Constitution and was contrary to all precedents. The Democratic Party, proclaiming itself the party of white men, North and South, supported Johnson. However, the Republicans in Congress overrode his veto. The Senate overrode the veto by the close vote of 33:15, the House by 122:41. Then, the Civil Rights Bill became law. Congress also passed another version of the Freedmen's Bureau Bill, which Johnson again vetoed. This time, however, Radical Republicans mustered enough congressional support to override Johnson's veto.
The Radical Republicans also passed the Reconstruction Amendments, which were directed at ending slavery and providing full citizenship to freedmen. Northern Congressmen believed that providing black men with suffrage would be the most rapid means of political education and training. For instance, the Fourteenth Amendment, whose principal drafter was John Bingham, was designed to put the key provisions of the Civil Rights Act into the Constitution. It extended citizenship to everyone born in the United States (except visitors and Indians on reservations), penalized states that did not give the vote to freedmen, and most importantly, created new federal civil rights that could be protected by federal courts. Johnson used his influence to block the amendment in the states.
While many blacks took an active part in voting and political life, and rapidly continued to build churches and community organizations, white Democrats and insurgent groups used force to regain power in the state legislatures, passing laws that effectively disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites in the South.
The End of Radical Reconstruction
The end of Reconstruction was a staggered process, and the period of Republican control ended at different times in different states. With the Compromise of 1877, army intervention in the South ceased and Republican control collapsed in the last three state governments in the South. This was followed by a period that white Southerners labeled "Redemption," during which white-dominated state legislatures enacted Jim Crow laws and, beginning in 1890, disenfranchised most blacks and many poor whites through a combination of constitutional amendments and electoral laws. The white Democrat Southerners' memory of Reconstruction played a major role in imposing the system of white supremacy and second-class citizenship for blacks, known as "The Age of Jim Crow."
Many of the ambitions of the Radical Republicans were, in the end, undermined and unfulfilled. Early Supreme Court rulings around the turn of the century upheld many of these new Southern constitutions and laws, and most blacks were prevented from voting in the South until the 1960s. Full federal enforcement of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments did not occur until passage of legislation in the mid-1960s as a result of the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968).