The Radical Republicans responded to President Andrew Johnson's veto of the bill to extend the Freedmen's Bureau by overriding his veto. The Freedmen's Bureau had been established to assist former enslaved people and impoverished white citizens in the South after the Civil War, providing food, housing, education, and medical care.
The Radical Republicans were a faction within the Republican Party that strongly supported civil rights for freed slaves and were critical of Johnson's lenient policies toward the South. They viewed Johnson's veto as an obstruction to the progress they aimed to achieve for the freedmen. In March 1866, the House of Representatives and later the Senate successfully voted to override Johnson's veto, thereby allowing the Freedmen's Bureau to continue its important work.
This action illustrated the growing conflict between the Radical Republicans and President Johnson and emphasized the Radical Republicans' determination to ensure that the rights of African Americans were protected in the post-war South.
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