Radical Republicans

A) hoped to institutionalize the principle of equal rights for all, regardless of race.
B) believed it was necessary to reduce federal power in order to establish and protect civil rights.
C) all supported Thaddeus Stevens's land distribution proposal.
D) voted against the Fourteenth Amendment.
E) opposed the Reconstruction Act.

Radical Republicans

Group within the Republican Party in the 1850s and 1860s that advocated strong resistance to the expansion of slavery, opposition to compromise with the South in the secession crisis of 1860–1861, emancipation and arming of black soldiers during the Civil War, and equal civil and political rights for blacks during Reconstruction.

Equal Rights

The principle that all people should have the same rights and opportunities without discrimination.

Thaddeus Stevens

A nineteenth-century U.S. politician and fierce advocate for the abolition of slavery and leader in the effort to implement Reconstruction policies aimed at securing rights for freed slaves.