The approach of Lincoln and Johnson, was the radical Republicans, the liberal side of the Republican Party, favored a much tougher approach. They were idealists, many of them were driven by an religious fervor. They did not accept that blacks they were insisted on full political issues, social and civil rights for the former slaves. In this case they were reformers, and they had very different ideas about reconstruction from those of Lincoln and Johnson. It was how Lincoln’s thinking on reconstruction might have evolved over time could never known. The radicals thought Lincoln was way too easy on the South and wanted to overturn Southern their institutions and practices, they wanted to see the South rebuilt itself according to a new order.