Sunday, September 13, 2009

What Fresh Hell

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.
The Radical Republicans had been opposed to slavery during the war, and after the war supported equal rights for freedmen (the newly freed slaves), such as measures ensuring the right to vote; passage of the Reconstruction Acts, and harsh treatment of ex-Confederates. The Radicals were vigorously opposed by the Democratic Party and sometime by more moderate Republicans as well.[1]
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 pocket-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.[2]
After the assassination of Lincoln, Vice President Andrew Johnson became president. Although he appeared at first to be a Radical,[3] he broke with them, and the Radicals and Johnson became embroiled in a bitter struggle. After Johnson violated the Tenure of Office Act by dismissing Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, the House of Representatives voted to impeach him; he escaped removal from office by the Senate by a single vote.
After the 1866 elections, the Radicals generally controlled Congress. Johnson vetoed 21 bills passed by Congress during his term, but the Radical supermajority overrode 15 of them, including the Reconstruction Acts and Force Acts, which rewrote the election laws for the South and allowed blacks to vote. As a result of the newly empowered freedmen, the Republicans took power away from the ex-Confederates whom Johnson had appointed. The Radicals generally promoted these state Republican regimes until the last remaining three collapsed in 1877.[4]
During the American Civil War, and later into the primary part of Reconstruction, the leading Radicals were Thaddeus Stevens in the House, Charles Sumner in the Senate, and John C. Frémont as the 1864 U.S. presidential candidate of the Radical Republicans. Ulysses S. Grant was elected as a Republican in 1868; after the election he generally sided with the Radicals on Reconstruction policies (signing the Civil Rights Act of 1871 into law). The Radicals split in 1872 over Grant's reelection, and lost power after the Democrats gained control of Congress in the elections of 1874.[1]

30 comments:

  1. jadedJ...you are so very welcom. Now please use this link and study and think and see the connection to this day. or not.

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  2. Link? My count is 35 links...could be wrong because I only counted one time. I am all thunk out.

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  3. no. my brain is in lock down...and you can't make me.

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  4. I picked one and now know much more about the early life of Abraham Lincoln. Thank you Punch. Sorry though no comment re connection or otherwise to situation today.

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  5. Ha! Thank you Lou. I am once again vindicated.

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  6. For radicals, read Cheney and folks, Bush as Grant (like that one, another bad president) and the victory of the Dems made the radical Reps scurry like rats, desperate to find a platform.

    How did I do? However, the Dems did more damage to the country post Civil War. Repubs were just all fucked up after Lincoln took a bullet and that moron Andrew Johnson slithered in the White House.

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  7. Johnson was more concerned with punishing wealthy southerners which was a personal grudge on his part, because he had been frequently snubbed by them because he was born poor in Tennessee. He had only been put on the ticket at all because he was the only representative from the state of Tennessee to support the Union. He was one of the Southern Unionists of which, surprisingly, my Great-Great Grandfather was among. But their devotion was not to emancipation. They still thought blacks were inferior---they just had severe grudges against the landed gentry and the plantation owners. And for good reason.

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  8. loose faction... I liked that. Apt; and how has this changed....

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  9. Radical Republicans, landed gentry, brain-dead proletariat... things ain't changed all that much Miss Daisey.

    BTW... Corruption in the Union during the Civil War makes the scoundrels today look like pikers. Things like short-changing the salt peter in the gun powder to rip off the government. It didn't matter at all to the bastards that the gun might not fire in combat. There are thousands of such examples. Grant inherited a situation worse than anything Obama is facing today. Of course, he didn't accomplish a damned thing towards remedying the situation.
    However, as a Southerner whose family fought for the Confederacy, I have to respect Grant for the way he treated the Confederate troops after the surrender. For example: He allowed them to keep their weapons because he knew they would need them for hunting when they got home. And, he had his army line the road and salute General Lee upon his arrival at Appomattox court house for the surrender.

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  10. Lou...thanks for the comment about no comment, all comments are welcome. Well, except some of JJ's.
    JadedJ...see above.
    EotR...right on sister. It was a nasty period of time.
    ComradeK...very good point. that war was about many things having nothing to do with slavery.
    Harlequin...they are still a loose faction, more like a loose canon on most days.
    Mr. C...well spoken.

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  11. Are you taking the p*ss out of me Punch? It's important you understand that I'm too thick to even recognise sarcasm most of the time - it is only wasted on me.

    BTW 'taking the p*ss' is kiwi for making fun of in case you didn't get that.

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  12. Andy Johnson I've blogged on a few times. He and the RRs were an accident waiting to happen.

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  13. Lou...No, by all means, i was not making fun. I like your comments and your blog. The friday flowers are quite nice. It was a pun, and I am far too fond of puns. A comment about no comment just stuck me as amusing. No offence meant to you. If anything i was taking the piss out of JadedJ, he and I have this running gag that just goes on forever. Thanks for new slang can't get enough these days, everyone uses the same ol' same ol'. I don't take you for thick. JadedJ on the other hand, well you see how it goes. Please come back and leave a comment or not, if it suits you.

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  14. JadedJ...You my good sir owe Lou, an apology, toot sweet, for you are the rapscallion that got me in the pickle. Forthwith, cad.

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  15. PeachT...it is an interesting lesson and it goes and goes and goes and comes back round

    "tis a gift to be simple,
    tis a gift to be free,
    tis a gift to come round
    where we ought to be"

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  16. james...do any current players and situations reflect Andrew Johnson, in your opinion?

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  17. You sir, are a rat. First you insult one of our down under friends, then you weasel out of it by laying the mealy-mouthed blame on a REAL gentleman and scholar. In the past I have ignored the things they said about you at the parole board hearing, but this simply goes beyond all decent levels of bloggerism.

    Next thing we know you'll be attending a teabagger gathering, with an obnoxious placard declaring that Obama is actually a Borg bent on collecting our very essence of oils for the good of the all.

    Lou, I know you know I had nothing to do with this insipidness. However, I do apologize for the actions and mouthiness of one arrogant Yank...some of us are actually nice dudes.

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  18. A Mercury Bucoup? I thought you owned a Buick Skylark, or swallow or some such.

    OK, weak. Uncle. Just this one time.

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  19. "Every generation throws a hero up the pop chart"--Bowie

    Truth be told the words Republican and Democrat mean nothing, the same old lessons will still get learned by them who refuse to see and teach the solution. Greed is not good and should have hard consequences. The reconstruction was one more of the times where greed was unchecked by the government and vast wealth was confiscated by them with the wherewithal to increase their profit at the bent knee of them in misery.

    Some lessons have been retaught to every generation since...well every generation. I think memory training should be mandatory in pre-k kids.

    For all his brilliance man never learns.

    I now return you to your interstate rivalry.

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  20. thanks, walking man, the voice of reason. What I do not understand is the constant I, me, me, mine syndrome. I don't mean a bunch of do gooders but where are the people we read about in school books who seemed to want the good of the country first. Perhaps that was just a tale made by the likes of disney and co. never really happened at all.

    it was P.Simon in the boy in the bubble who told us...
    And I believe
    These are the days of lasers in the jungle,
    Lasers in the jungle somewhere,
    Staccato signals of constant information,
    A loose affiliation of millionaires
    And billionaires and baby,
    These are the days of miracle and wonder,
    This is the long distance call...
    even that sounds a bit strained these days.

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  21. Mr. C--I agree with your take on Grant. He was a great general who became a lousy president--very corrupt and drunk all the time--used by his party as a puppet.

    I suppose I will get it for saying this, but I always dug the South--no, I don't support slavery, but the South did have balls for seceding. No state would do such a thing now. And you are right the 19th century--post Civil War was one corrupt place--so true.

    I hate how Johnson and his worms punished the South. But would Lincoln have healed the Union? I would like to think so, but I don't know.

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  22. EOR... there is one area of the country with the scrotes to still try to leave the union... the Florida keys... The Conch Republic.

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  23. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  24. Punch,
    Welcome to spam.

    I will move to the Keys, Mr. C, so I can escape this great nation.

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  25. EotR...I don't like spam sam i am. wonder what Star does for a living.
    I say Mr. Flagler tear down this railroad! They would then have a free nation.
    I'm not sure, being from the south and all, the Grant was a great general. He was just ruthless and had money and troops and threw bodies into the lion's mouth

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email punchnojudy@gmail.com, love being alive, the alterntiative has lousy hours, liberal and don't care if you give me cracked corn.