enforce their agenda.  There was little in way of Southern state negotiation, as the federal government mandated that the states follow the policy and path the Reconstruction agenda and had little in way of voice about it.

I would say they were quite radical in both categories.  The political changes that occurred right after the Civil War, including the abolition of slavery, giving freed slaves citizenship and black males the right to vote were very radical acts, undertaken by most Republicans, radical or not.  But Radical Republicans, led by Senator Thaddeus Stevens, also wanted to punish the South with the Conquered Province Theory, denying them citizenship and treated them like occupied military districts.  While this did not get adopted, it was certainly radical.

Economically, Stevens also championed the "40 Acres and a Mule" idea of distributing former plantations to former slaves, first started as a convenience by General William T. Sherman, and giving each family a mule to work the land.  This idea was also too radical for mainstream Republicans and the President who refused to adopt it.  The Freedman's Bureau, also strongly supported by the radicals, did manage to function for six years after the Civil War bringing education to former slaves in Southern States where it had once been illegal to teach them anything.  200,000 blacks achieved basic literacy in just six years, a radical economic, but also social act.

The radicalism of the Radical Republicans was more political than it was economic.  The Radical Republicans' economic plan was really not particularly radical.

Some of these men were willing to propose radical plans.  Thaddeus Stevens, for example, proposed land redistribution in the South.  He proposed that the largest estates in the South should be broken up and distributed to poor whites, freed slaves, and even to Northern land buyers.  This would truly have been radical.

As it was, however, the Radicals did not do anything very radical in economic terms.  They did not even give any land (not even the proverbial 40 acres and a mule) to the freed slaves.  The Radicals did do radical things in politics, but they did not do anything particularly radical in economics.

If one defines "radical" as "extreme," then the radical republicans were indeed radical. They were determined to remake the South as a model of the North with no regard to the history and culture of the South, which they considered anachronistic and inferior. The position of Abraham Lincoln and other Republicans before and during the war had been that the southern states had no authority to leave the union, but had rather simply been in rebellion. The Radical Republicans all but abandoned this position to make sure they were in complete control of reconstruction. Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania argued that the former Confederate states had reverted to "conquered provinces."

It is obvious from all this that the first duty of Congress is to pass a law declaring the condition of these outside or defunct States, and providing proper civil governments for them. Since the conquest they have been governed by martial law. Military rule is necessarily despotic, and ought not to exist longer than is absolutely necessary. As there are no symptoms that the people of these provinces will be prepared to participate in constitutional government for some years, I know of no arrangement so proper for them as territorial governments. There they can learn the principles of freedom and eat the fruit of foul rebellion. Under such governments, while electing members to the territorial Legislatures, they will necessarily mingle with those to whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In Territories Congress fixes the qualifications of electors; and I know of no better place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror to practice justice to all men, and accustom themselves to make and obey equal laws. . .

Charles Sumner of Massachusetts argued that the Southern states had committed political suicide:

Any vote of secession or other act by which any State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a practical ABDICATION by the State of all rights under the Constitution, while the treason it involves still further works an instant FORFEITURE of all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being according to the language of the law felo de se, ceases to exist.

The Radical Republicans were then radical in every sense of the word, unwilling to concede or compromise in any manner with the former Confederate States.