[Grand Old Partisan]

Sorry about my first preply. Like I said, I'm NOT going to get into finger-pointing at Republican leaders.

As for my hero, Thaddeus Stevens, he was the (slightly fictionalized) villian of "Birth of the Nation" , that wildly over-the-top pro-KKK movie -- which to me is a great compliment. All this Democrat basshing of Stevens ignores the fact that Republican Reconstruction, Radical or otherwise, did not even begin in the South until the March 1867 passage of the Reconstruction Act. That law was more than anything a reaction against how brutally the ex-rebel Democrats of the South were treating the blacks and white Unionists in the two years before Reconstruction began.

[GOPcapitalist]

As for my hero, Thaddeus Stevens, he was the (slightly fictionalized) villian of "Birth of the Nation" , that wildly over-the-top pro-KKK movie -- which to me is a great compliment.

So the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Funny, cause that's what got FDR hooked up with Joe Stalin.

All this Democrat basshing of Stevens ignores the fact that Republican Reconstruction, Radical or otherwise, did not even begin in the South until the March 1867 passage of the Reconstruction Act.

Actually, what can accurately be termed "reconstruction" style policies began in Missouri circa 1862 and continued in varying degrees across southern states both off and on through 1867. At times, some did indeed regain control on their own and this did indeed prompt reaction in Congress, but that alone does not mean that none of the reviled policies predated 1867.