They planned one universal bonfire of the North from Lake Ontario to the Missouri." Among the lesser lights may be mentioned Morton and Wade, both bluff, coarse, and ungenerous, and thoroughly convinced that the Republican party had a monopoly of loyalty, wisdom, and virtues, and that by any means it must gain and keep control; Boutwell, fanatical and mediocre; and Benjamin Butler, a charlatan and demagogue.

As a class the Western radicals were less troubled by humanitarian ideals than were those of the East and sought more practical political results.
The Joint Committee on Reconstruction which finally decided the fate of the Southern states was composed of eight radicals, four moderate Republicans, and three Democrats.

As James Gillespie Blaine wrote later, "it was foreseen that in an especial degree the fortunes of the Republican party would be in the keeping of the fifteen men who might be chosen." This committee was divided into four subcommittees to take testimony.

The witnesses, all of whom were examined at Washington, included army officers and Bureau agents who had served in the South, Southern Unionists, a few politicians, and several former Confederates, among them General Robert E.Lee and Alexander H.Stephens.Most of the testimony was of the kind needed to support the contentions of the radicals that Negroes were badly treated in the South; that the whites were disloyal; that, should they be left in control, the Negro, free labor, the nation, and the Republican party would be in danger; that the army and the Freedmen's Bureau must be kept in the South; and that a radical reconstruction was necessary.

No serious effort, however, was made to ascertain the actual conditions in the South.