Benjamin Franklin "Bluff" Wade (October 27, 1800 – March 2, 1878) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator for Ohio from 1851 to 1869.

[2] He established a reputation as one of the most radical American politicians of the era, favoring women's suffrage, trade union rights, and equality for African-Americans.

[1] In opposition to Lincoln's post-war plans, which he deemed too lenient and conciliatory, Wade sponsored the Wade–Davis Bill, which proposed strict terms for the re-admittance of Confederate states.

Although frequently criticized for his radicalism during his time, particularly as he opposed Lincoln's ten-percent plan, Wade's contemporary reputation has been lauded for his lifelong unwavering and persistent commitment to civil rights and racial equality.

He became the prosecuting attorney of Ashtabula County by 1836, and as a member of the Whig Party, Wade was elected to the Ohio State Senate, serving two two-year terms between 1837 and 1842.

[2] In March 1861, Wade became chairman of the Committee on Territories, and in July 1861, along with other politicians, he witnessed the defeat of the Union Army at the First Battle of Bull Run.

Wade was also critical of Lincoln's Reconstruction Plan; in December 1863, he and Henry Winter Davis sponsored a bill that would run the South, when conquered, their way.

Later when the groundwork for Radical Republicanism was being laid, Wade contended that under a new economic and social structure in the South shaped by free labor, both blacks and whites would "finally occupy a platform according to their merits.

[2] Wade supported the Freedmen's Bureau and Civil Rights Bills (which he succeeded in extending to the District of Columbia) and was a strong partisan of the Fourteenth Amendment.

[9]Indeed, some of the Moderate Republican senators who voted to acquit Johnson, including William P. Fessenden of Maine, acted out of antipathy towards the staunchly pro-civil rights Wade, who they did not want to become president.

[10] Northern business interests also disdained Wade due to his advocacy of labor unions, high protective tariffs, and a "soft" monetary policy.

He became an agent of the Northern Pacific Railroad, continued his party activities, became a member of the commission researching the likelihood of the purchase of the Dominican Republic in 1871 and served as an elector for Rutherford Hayes in the election of 1876.

Among Wade's political activities in his post-Congress years included his taking part among the Republican "Stalwart" faction, the wing of the GOP which supported the Reconstruction policies of President Ulysses S. Grant and opposed civil service reform during the 1870s.

[15] He wrote in a subsequently published letter to Uriah Hunt Painter of The New York Times: I do remember it, after what has since transpired, with indignation and a bitterness of soul that I never felt before.

You know with what untiring zeal I labored for the emancipation of the slaves of the South and to procure justice for them before and during the time I was in Congress, and I supposed Governor Hayes was in full accord with me on this subject.

[15] Wade, amidst his expressed frustration and grief over President Hayes' betrayal of the Republican Party's commitment to civil rights, fell ill.[16] His progressively worsening health, attributed by doctors to a form of typhoid fever, would subsequently result in his death.

News reporting quickly spread; The New York Times, which had long criticized him frequently, published an obituary titled: "The Last of the Congressional Champions of Freedom.