Volume 12 , Issue 15

1854 Radical Republicans

The Republicans of 1854 are nothing like the Republicans of today!

The Republican Party was founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854. During the 1850s, the Republican Party was a coalition of Northern altruists, industrialists, former Whigs, practical politicians, and while not publicly committed to abolition of slavery prior to the Civil War, the Republican party nonetheless attracted the most zealous anti-slavery advocates.

Some members of the Republican Party were not only in favour the abolition of slavery but believed that freed slaves should have complete equality with white citizens. They also opposed the Fugitive Slave Act and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This group became known as Radical Republicans.

When the Republican Party formed in 1854 many abolitionists, gradual and immediate, joined in hopes that they could work within a political structure to change the United States. Both Freesoilers and the Liberty Party were almost all abolitionists while the Northern Whigs, which made up the largest single group of the Republican Party were interested in correcting a wide range of problems they saw within the structure of America. Two groups of Democrats also joined the Republicans, remnants of the Barnburners and pro-abolition Democrats.

The Radical Republicans thought Abraham Lincoln to be radical for his views. Historians have concluded that Lincoln handled the factions (moderate and radicals) of the Republican Party well, bringing leaders of each faction into his cabinet and forcing them to cooperate.

The Radical Republicans, an abolitionist faction of the Republican Party, criticized President Lincoln for moving too slowly in abolishing slavery. The Radical Republicans were a "loose faction" of American politicians within the Republican Party from about 1854 (before the American Civil War) until the end of Reconstruction in 1877.

Radical Republicans also clashed with Lincoln over his treatment of Major General John C. Fremont. On 30th August, 1861, Fremont, the commander of the Union Army in St. Louis, proclaimed that all slaves owned by Confederates in Missouri were free.

The Radical Republicans opposed President Abraham Lincoln's terms for reuniting the United States during Reconstruction, which began in 1863, which they viewed as too lenient. They proposed an "ironclad oath" (which Lincoln blocked) and the Wade-Davis Bill (which Lincoln vetoed) in 1864. However the Radicals did control the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, where they demanded a more aggressive prosecution of the war, "the faster end to slavery and total destruction of the Confederacy."

The Radical Republicans took a hard line against the Confederacy early during the Lincoln Administration and opposed Lincoln's "too easy" terms for reuniting the United States following the end of the Civil War. Utilizing membership within the Joint Committee on Reconstruction as a political platform, the Radical Republicans demanded a more aggressive prosecution of the war and the faster destruction of slavery and Confederate Nationalism. The leading Radicals in the Republican party were Thaddeus Stevens in the House, Charles Sumner in the Senate. After his election as president in 1868 Ulysses S. Grant became the leading Radical Republican.

Radical Republicans strongly opposed the policies of President Andrew Johnson and argued in Congress that Southern plantations should be taken from their owners -- divided among the former slaves. They also attacked Johnson when he attempted to veto the extension of the Freeman's Bureau, the Civil Rights Bill and the Reconstruction Acts. However, the Radical Republicans were able to get the Reconstruction Acts passed in 1867 and 1868.

Despite these acts, white control over Southern state governments was gradually restored when organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan were able to frighten blacks from voting in elections.

Following the Civil War, however, Radical Republicans collapsed. Following the U.S. presidential election of 1876, the influence of the Radical Republicans waned and died. The Radical Republicans were viewed as outrageous in their own time, but their progressive goals of civil rights and equal treatment for African-Americans following emancipation were in fact almost universally realized within the United States over the following 100 years.

Link sources:
* Radical Republicans
* Radical Republicans & Reconstruction After the Civil War
* Book: "The Radical and the Republican, by James Oakes
* Radical Republicans - New World Encyclopedia
* Radical Republican -- History.com Articles, videos & Facts
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