"Radicalism" or "radical liberalism" was a political ideology in the 19th century United States aimed at increasing political and economic equality. The ideology was rooted in a belief in the power of the ordinary man, political equality, and the need to protect civil liberties.
Overview
The United States sat in a unique position in relation to the emergence of 19th century Radicalism due to its founding as a democratic republic in the American Revolution. Many of the reforms radicals advocated for in other countries had already been enacted in the United States, particularly under the administration of Andrew Jackson.[1] Historically, radicalism emerged during the Revolution with the political faction of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, who successfully shifted the rebellion from one simply about independence to one about enacting a system of republican government. The radicals then coalesced around Jefferson's Republican Party, which supported expansion of voter suffrage, direct elections of the presidency, westward settlement and the French Revolution. The apotheosis of his party was Andrew Jackson, the creator of the Democratic Party, a successor to the Republicans, who coerced the few remaining Northern conservative states to enact full white male voter suffrage and wanted to make democratic reforms to the American system of government, including abolishing the Electoral College, direct election of senators, a Homestead Act to give free land away to farmers who would settle the West, support for immigrants and more.
The system of slavery tore the Democrats, or as it was called in the antebellum and immediate post-bellum, the "Democracy", into factions. With the end of the war, the Democrats were embroiled with internal disputes between the traditional populist, radical faction and a nascent, on the rise conservative faction referred to as Bourbon Democrats. The traditional faction of the Democrats in the rest of the 19th century supported more radical reforms, such as bimetallism, extension of interest-free loans and credit to farmers, a graduated income tax, free trade, state-centric expansion of women's suffrage and making alliances with urban labor in the Midwest and Northeast. The leftmost faction of these Democratic radicals formed the Populist Party which wanted to enact all of the above reforms but went farther, also arguing for cooperative or state ownership of railroads and the creation of state subsidized agricultural purchasing cooperatives.[2]
The Democratic Party maintained its pro-farmer, pro-worker and pro-immigrant stance, eventually coalescing into its crowning achievement during the Great Depression: FDR's New Deal.
While Radical Republicans were not unified in regards to many issues in their early years, they were unified in their desire for the immediate complete abolition of slavery, belief in the predominance of Free Labor (both agricultural and industrial) over Slave Labor, support of Land Reform, suffrage expansion, opposition to the Southern Aristocracy, and belief in civil rights for emancipated slaves.
The ideology reached its peak relevance during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War. Radical Republicans sought to guarantee civil rights for African Americans, ensure that the former Confederate states had limited power in the federal government, and promote free market capitalism in the South in place of a slave based economy. Many Radical Republicans were also supportive of Labor Unions, though this element would fade over time. Many liberal Radical Republicans, (Liberal in this case meaning pro-free trade, civil service reform, federalism, and generally soft money) such as Charles Sumner and Lyman Turnbull, eventually began to leave the faction for otherparties and Republicanfactions as Reconstruction wore on to a point considered excessive and the corruption of many hardliners became evident.[5][6] These Liberal Republicans would try to appeal to racists, and their successors would abandon racial equality altogether.
The remaining radicals after this came to be referred to as the Stalwarts, and were from thereon marked primarily their advocacy of spoils system politics and African-American civil rights.[7] It was eventually succeeded as a liberal egalitarian left leaning ideology by Populism and later Progressivism.
1848: The Mexican–American War is won, making the westward expansion of Slavery a prominent political issue. The Free Soil Party, opposed to the expansion of slavery, is formed, attracting the vote of many anti-slavery Democrats.
1850: The Compromise of 1850 is passed, temporarily settling the issue of slavery, but infuriating many who were pro-slavery and anti-slavery.
1854: The Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed, leading to Bleeding Kansas and the breakup of the Whig Party. The Republican Party, and by extension the Radical Republican Faction, is formed.
1864: The Radical Democracy Party forms to oppose Lincoln in the 1864 election, but later drops out due to not wanting to act as a spoiler. Abraham Lincoln is re-elected. The civil war ends.
1865: Abraham Lincoln is assassinated. His vice president, confederate sympathizer Andrew Johnson, is sworn into office.
1870: Republicans disillusioned with the extent of Reconstruction and the corruption of the Republicans form the Liberal Republican Party. The Fifteenth Amendment, giving African Americans the right to vote, is ratified. the Enforcement Act of 1870 is passed to protect the new voting rights of African Americans and fight white supremacist paramilitary groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
1872: Grant is re-elected by a landslide, causing the Liberal Republicans to disband.
1876: Rutherford B. Hayes is sworn into office as a result of the Compromise of 1877, ending reconstruction and federal protection of the African American population of the south.
1880: Ulysses S. Grant fails to win a third Republican Nomination.
1890: The Sherman Antitrust Act is signed into law, making cartels and certain anti-competitive actions illegal.
1892: The Farmers' Alliances form a third party, the People's Party, also known as the Populist Party. While it initially tries to win the black vote from the Republicans, much of it would eventually gain a more white supremacist character. They would go on to win 11 house seats, 3 senate seats, and the Colorado Governorship in the following midterms.
1896: The Populist Party nominates Democratic nominee William Jennings Bryan to be President after his Cross of Gold speech, though with a different Vice President. This proves to be disastrous for the party, with the Democrats significantly sapping away at the base of the Populists. The populists would never recover from this, and would be a shadow of their former selves.
1912: Theodore Roosevelt, perceiving the Republican Party as not progressive enough, forms the Progressive Party, splitting the Republican vote and allowing Woodrow Wilson to claim victory in the 1912 election.
1913: The Sixteenth Amendment is ratified, allowing a federal level progressive income tax. The Seventeenth Amendment is ratified, making senators directly elected.
^Sean Wilentz, "Politics, Irony, and the Rise of American Democracy." Journal of The Historical Society 6.4 (2006): 537-553, at p. 538, summarizing his book The rise of American democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2006).
^Foner, Eric (1988). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. New York: Harper & Row.
^Gilbert Abcarian, ed. (1971). American Political Radicalism: Contemporary Issues and Orientations. Xerox College Pub.
^Jacob Kramer, ed. (2017). The New Freedom and the Radicals: Woodrow Wilson, Progressive Views of Radicalism, and the Origins of Repressive Tolerance. Temple University Press.
Sources
Brown, David (1999). "Jeffersonian Ideology and the Second Party System". Wiley. 62 (1): 17–30. JSTOR24450533.
Reichley, A. James (2000) [1992]. The Life of the Parties: A History of American Political Parties (Paperback ed.). Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN0-7425-0888-9.
