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Hannibal Hamlin
Hannibal Hamlin (August 27, 1809 – July 4, 1891) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 17th president of the United States, from 1865 to 1873. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A member of the Radical Republican faction of the Republican Party, Hamlin worked with congress in the aftermath of the Civil War to implement Reconstruction, an extensive political project which granted civil rights to African-Americans, and dismantled the socio-political order of former Confederate states.

An attorney by background, Hamlin began his political career as a Democrat in the Maine House of Representatives before being elected twice to the United States House of Representatives, and then to the United States Senate. With his strong abolitionist views, he left the Democratic Party for the newly formed Republican Party in 1856. In the 1860 general election, Hamlin balanced the successful Republican ticket as a New Englander partnering the Northwesterner Lincoln. Although not a close friend of the president, he lent loyal support to his key projects such as the Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln and Hamlin were reelected to office in 1865.

Lincoln was assassinated just over a month into his second term, amid a wider plot by Confederate sympathizers against the president and several cabinet members; Hamlin himself narrowly avoided assassination. Upon ascending to the Presidency, Hamlin rejected Lincoln's more conciliatory approach to Reconstruction, supporting the Radical Reconstruction advocated by a majority of congressmembers. Under the Reconstruction Acts of 1865, former states of the Confederacy were divided into five military districts; supporters of the Confederacy were permanently disenfranchised and barred from holding office. Many Confederate political and military leaders were tried, jailed and executed by military tribunals for treason. Simultaneously, the 14th, 15th, and 16th amendments granted African-Americans across the United States equivalent civil rights to White Americans, including the right to vote and own property; freedmen throughout the former Confederacy were given allotments of land confiscated from Southern plantation owners. The Freedmen's Bureau was established to ensure the protection of African-American civil rights, while Hamlin advocated for public school systems and other social infrastructure across the South. Hamlin also extensively prosecuted whitecapping groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, and appointed African-Americans to prominent federal offices. Hamlin's approach to Reconstruction was controversial among Northern Democrats and more moderate factions of the Republican Party, who united behind his opponent Charles Francis Adams in the 1869 election; Hamlin nonetheless easily defeated their opposition.

In other domestic matters, Hamlin favored machine politics, or a Spoils system, in allocating positions in his administration. Hamlin's foreign policy was mostly peaceful; his Secretary of State, Charles Sumner, successfully advocated for the annexation of Alaska, and negotiated the settlement of the Alabama claims. The president's assimilationist Indian policy, while liberal for its time period, has largely been criticized today.

An enormously contentious president in his own time, Hamlin nonetheless achieved wide popularity among his base of Northern whites and African-Americans by the end of his presidency. Hamlin declined to seek a third term, and his vice president, Benjamin Wade succeeded him as president. Hamlin remained active until a heart condition caused him to retire from public life in 1880; he died in 1891. Hamlin is often ranked in popular and scholarly polls as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

Benjamin Wade
Benjamin Franklin "Bluff" Wade (October 27, 1800 – March 2, 1878) was an American lawyer and politician who served as president of the United States from 1873 to 1878. Wade's advocacy for currency reform, trade unionism, and continued precipitated a major realignment in the two party system. Wade continued and cemented the Radical Reconstructionist policies of his predecessor, Hannibal Hamlin, under whom he served as vice president.

Born in Massachusetts, Wade worked as a laborer on the Erie Canal before establishing a law practice in Jefferson, Ohio. As a member of the Whig Party, Wade served in the Ohio Senate between 1837 and 1842. After a stint as a local judge, Wade was sworn into the United States Senate in 1851. An opponent of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and the Kansas–Nebraska Act, Wade joined the nascent Republican Party as the Whigs collapsed. He established a reputation as one of the most radical American politicians of the era, favoring women's suffrage, worker's rights, and equality for African-Americans. During the Civil War, Wade was highly critical of President Abraham Lincoln's leadership. , and acted in opposition to Lincoln's post-war plans, which he deemed too lenient and conciliatory.

Wade's popularity among the Republican base led him to be selected as Hannibal Hamlin's Vice President at the 1868 Republican National Convention; is presence on the ticket was one of multiple factors that led to a moderate faction called the Liberal Republicans forming an opposition party to the ticket. While vice president Wade's high profile as vice president led him to be seen as the frontrunner for the 1872 Republican Presidential Nomination, which he subsequently won; Wade narrowly prevailed in the general election against a more formalized opposition of former moderate Republicans and Democrats, now calling themselves Liberals. Wade was the oldest president in American history at the time of his inauguration.

Wade set an ambitious agenda at the beginning of his term, advocating legislation implementing expansion of publicly funded education; however, his plans met some resistance among a more conservative congress, and he was able to implement only modest reform in the early days of his administration. Wade vetoed the Coinage Act of 1873, legislation meant to establish a gold standard in the United States; this action has been credited by many historians with dulling some of the effects of the subsequent Panic. Wade's zealous engagement with economic depression and vetoing of legislation he saw as deleterious to the economy earned him widespread popularity among African-Americans and poor Northern whites but strained his relationship with congress. His agenda was largely stalled for the first two years of his administration, though Wade was able to implement a hands-off approach to union strikes, and oversaw the reentry of several reconstructed states into the Union.

Wade loyalists, who became the dominant wing of the Republican Party and referred to themselves as Greenbacks gained a majority congress in 1875, and his administration was subsequently able to pass unbacked currency reform; the depression largely resolved by the end of Wade's term. Having previously promised to only serve a single term, citing his age, Wade left office in 1877. He was succeeded to the presidency by his self-picked successor, Benjamin Butler, and died within a year of his retirement.

Wade has been regarded by scholars as an above-average president, praised for his actions against a major economic crisis, realignment of American politics towards a major labor movement, and continued commitment to Reconstruction. However he has been criticized, with elements of corruption in his administration undermining his commitment towards equal protection under the law.

Thomas Ferry
Thomas White Ferry (June 10, 1827 – October 13, 1896), or T.W. Ferry, was a U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and acting President of the United States. from 1878 to 1879. He was the first and only President pro tempore of the Senate to ascend to an acting presidency.

James Weaver
James Baird Weaver (June 12, 1833 – February 6, 1912) was a member of the United States House of Representatives and two-time candidate for President of the United States. Born in Ohio, he moved to Iowa as a boy when his family claimed a homestead on the frontier. He became politically active as a young man and was an advocate for farmers and laborers. He joined and quit several political parties in the furtherance of the progressive causes in which he believed. After serving in the Union Army in the American Civil War, Weaver returned to Iowa and worked for the election of Republican candidates. After several unsuccessful attempts at Republican nominations to various offices, and growing dissatisfied with the conservative wing of the party, in 1877 Weaver switched to the Greenback Party, which supported increasing the money supply and regulating big business. As a Greenbacker with Democratic support, Weaver won election to the House in 1878.

The Greenbackers nominated Weaver for president in 1880, but he received only 3.3 percent of the popular vote. After several more attempts at elected office, he was again elected to the House in 1884 and 1886. In Congress, he worked for expansion of the money supply and for the opening of Indian Territory to white settlement. As the Greenback Party fell apart, a new anti-big business third party, the People's Party ("Populists"), arose. Weaver helped to organize the party and was their nominee for president in 1892. This time he was more successful and gained 8.5 percent of the popular vote and won five states, but still fell far short of victory. The Populists merged with the Democrats by the end of the 19th century, and Weaver went with them, promoting the candidacy of William Jennings Bryan for president in 1896, 1900, and 1908. After serving as mayor of his home town, Colfax, Iowa, Weaver retired from his pursuit of elective office. He died in Iowa in 1912. Most of Weaver's political goals remained unfulfilled at his death, but many came to pass in the following decades.