He advocated confiscation, the proscription or exile of leading whites, the granting of the franchise and of lands to the Negroes, and in Southern states the establishment of territorial governments under the control of Congress.

These states should, he said, "never be recognized as capable of acting in the Union...

until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what the makers intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendancy to the party of the Union." Charles Sumner, the leader of the radicals in the Senate, was moved less than Stevens by personal hostility toward the whites of the South, but his sympathy was reserved entirely for the blacks.

He was unpractical, theoretical, and not troubled by constitutional scruples.

To him the Declaration of Independence was the supreme law, and it was the duty of Congress to express its principles in appropriate legislation.