Radical Republicans are a coalition of northern representatives in Congress. The group’s goal was to protect and promote the interests of Black Southerners and to punish white Southerners for the Civil War. However, the president and Congress were not on the same page. After the war ended there was tension in the White House because black southerners could not vote yet and the southern white aristocrats came back to reclaim their seats. The Radical Republicans declared that the southern white did not have the right to say anything unless they sworn to the Union’s allegiance. The Radical Republicans were able to pass 3 new Reconstruction acts: first was to divide the South into five military districts. The second required former Confederate