Changes

President [[Andrew Johnson]], a Democrat elected vice president in 1864 at the height of the war on a national unity ticket with Republican [[Abraham Lincoln]], was in constant conflict with the [[Radical Republicans]] who controlled Congress.  The [[media]] called Republicans "radical" because they advocated full equality and [[civil rights]] for [[blacks]], and wanted to punish Confederates and Southern slaveholders who engaged in open rebellion.   

President [[Andrew Johnson]], a Democrat elected vice president in 1864 at the height of the war on a national unity ticket with Republican [[Abraham Lincoln]], was in constant conflict with the [[Radical Republicans]] who controlled Congress.  The [[media]] called Republicans "radical" because they advocated full equality and [[civil rights]] for [[blacks]], and wanted to punish Confederates and Southern slaveholders who engaged in open rebellion.   

Johnson handed out numerous pardons to former slaveholders, Confederate officers, and the rank and file.  This brought Johnson into conflict with Lincoln's [[Secretary of War]], who had been confirmed by the Senate, vowing to carry out the Republicans' civil rights efforts for Blacks in occupied military districts of [[the South]] when the war was over.

Johnson handed out numerous [[pardon]]s to former slaveholders, Confederate officers, and the rank and file.  This brought Johnson into conflict with Lincoln's [[Secretary of War]], who had been confirmed by the Senate, vowing to carry out the Republicans' civil rights efforts for Blacks in occupied military districts of [[the South]] after the war.

President Johnson vetoed Republican civil rights legislation and even called their leaders "traitors". Flush from winning the war, Republican Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (PA) and Sen. Charles Sumner (MA) were not about to back down on the agenda of delivering equality for former black slaves and punishing Democrats who ripped society apart and tried to destroy the Union. Sumner in 1856 delivered an unconscionably disrespectful speech against elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, author of the [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] which legalized [[slavery]] in Western territories north of the [[Mason-Dixon Line]], whereupon Butler's outraged nephew Preston Brooks beat Sumner senseless with a cane inside the [[U.S. Capitol]].<ref>Sumner's Senate floor speech accused proponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of the "rape of virgin territory" by bringing slavery into Kansas.</ref>

President Johnson vetoed Republican civil rights legislation and even called their leaders "traitors". Flush from winning the war, Republican Rep. Thaddeus Stevens (PA) and Sen. Charles Sumner (MA) were not about to back down on the agenda of delivering equality for former black slaves and punishing Democrats who ripped society apart and tried to destroy the Union. Sumner in 1856 delivered an unconscionably disrespectful speech against elderly South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, author of the [[Kansas-Nebraska Act]] which legalized [[slavery]] in Western territories north of the [[Mason-Dixon Line]], whereupon Butler's outraged nephew Preston Brooks beat Sumner senseless with a cane inside the [[U.S. Capitol]].<ref>Sumner's Senate floor speech accused proponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of the "rape of virgin territory" by bringing slavery into Kansas.</ref>