Unlike many other radical Republicans, Julian wanted the former Confederates punished for their rebellion against the United States. He called for hanging Jefferson Davis. "And I would not stop with Davis," he told an Indianapolis crowd in November, 1865. "Why should I? There is old General Lee, as hungry for the gallows as Davis. [Applause.] ... I would hang liberally while I had my hand in." In 1865 a Cincinnati newspaper reported that Julian thought a score of former Confederate leaders should be executed and their estates should be confiscated. He went on to suggest that these lands should be parceled out to poor people, white and black, in the South, including Union soldiers and sailors.