No After the Civil War ended, Congress was dominated by the Radical Republicans, a group that wanted to punish the South severely and especially the political and military leaders of the Confederacy. While he had no love lost for the planters of the South, Johnson wanted to have an easy path for the Southern states and most of its leadership to return to the good graces of the Union, much in line with what Lincoln had wanted. One of the hardliners was Edwin Stanton, who had been Lincoln’s Secretary of War and who Johnson decided to retain even though the two men didn’t care for each other. While their marriage of necessity in the early days of Reconstruction held together, soon their political differences threatened to rip the Johnson Administration apart, and it became clear that Johnson wanted rid of Stanton.