President Johnson

he most powerful Northern avengers and reformers were some Republicans members in Congress called radicals. They were bitter against the Southern rebels. They wanted to punish white Southerners, and they also wanted to see that the newly freed slaves received fair treatment. The Radical Republicans claimed that the Southern states had actually committed suicide, by trying to rebel. Thaddeus Stevens was one of the two leaders of the Radical Republicans. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, a power in the House of Representatives, was one of the strangest men in American history. He was sometimes called a humanitarian without humanity. In the Senate the leader of the Radicals was Charles Sumner of Massachusetts. As early as 1862 he had begun to fight for equal rights for blacks. He was a proud, vain ma, bitter against white Southerners and intolerant of all opposition. In Lincoln’s Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction he had explained his plan to pardon almost all Southerners, even if they had fought against the Union. Lincoln asked that Southerners take a solemn oath to support the Constitution of the United States in the future. Lincoln would then recognize the government of that state and let the people rule themselves, if they agreed to abolish slavery. The Wade-Davis plan suggested the construction of a new constitution for each Southern state. There would have to be an election to call a convention to make the new constitutions. No one could even vote in that election, much less be a delegate to help make the new constitution unless he took the ironclad oath. This oath was not merely a promise of future loyalty but also an oath of past purity. John WIlkes, had grown to be a well-known actor, and a passionate Confederate patriot. He organized a team to kill the President, Vice-President Johnson, and Secetary of State Seward. At the theater, he entered the President’s box, and shot Lincoln.