the extreme radicals with such leaders as Stevens, Sumner, Wade, and Boutwell; the moderate Republicans, chief among whom were Fessenden and Trumbull; the administration Republicans led by Raymond, Doolittle, Cowan, and Dixon; and the Democrats, of whom the ablest were Reverdy Johnson, Guthrie, and Hendricks. All except the extreme radicals were willing to support the President or to come to some fairly reasonable compromise. But at no time were they given an opportunity to get together. Johnson and the administration leaders did little in this direction and the radicals made the most skillful use of the divisions among the conservatives.
Whatever final judgment may be passed upon the radical reconstruction policy and its results, there can be no doubt of the political dexterity of those who carried it through. Chief among them was Thaddeus Stevens, vindictive and unscrupulous, filled with hatred of the Southern leaders, bitter in speech and possessing to an extreme degree the faculty of making ridiculous those who opposed him. He advocated confiscation, the proscription or exile of leading whites, the granting of the franchise and of lands to the negroes, and in Southern States the establishment of territorial
