What is all this chatter about "Radical Republicans"

One of my very favorite sayings is that there is nothing new under the sun except the history that you don't know.   Well, we are seeing the term "radical republican" being applied pejoratively all over the place by liberal media outlets.  They just get the party line and then repeat it over and over and over again.  After all, during liberal times if you say it 3 times and nobody objects then it can be treated as a truism (or truthiness if you are GW "murderous traitor" Bush).  Once something is a truism then you invoke it a few times and you then have precedent.  For liberals, precedent is as good as the rule of law.

In any case here is a short summary of the original definition of Radical Republican:

•  Radical was a name they gave themselves and wore proudly.  Back then that word did not have the connotation of "fringe" or crazy.  Radical means "one who seeks significant change from accepted or traditional forms".  Well, if the traditional norms have been debt-crazy liberalism for the past 50 years then call me a radical.
• One of their propaganda pamphlets read, "the word Radical as applied to political parties and politicians....means one who is in favor of going to the root of things; who is thoroughly in earnest; who desires that slavery should be abolished, that every disability connected therewith should be obliterated."
• Radical politicians of the 1800s were opposed to both the pro slavery liberal democrats of the north as well as the southern conservatives. 
• Radicals strongly opposed slavery
• Radicals supported uncompensated abolition of slavery
• Radicals demanded civil rights for freed slaves including a push to give them voting rights.
• Radicals hated the disproportionate power of the special interest slave owners over the federal government.
• Radicals did not sit around idly just collecting a paycheck like most of congress today.  They were politically active agents of change.

So yes, the title as applied to the libertarians who are being labeled "Radical Republicans" does fit nicely except that it is really a compliment rather than the insult which it appears to be in its present day use.