The
Republican Party was established at Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854 by a
group of former members of the Whig Party,
the Free-Soil Party and the Democratic
Party. Its original founders were opposed to slavery
and called for the repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska
and the Fugitive Slave Law. Early members
thought it was important to place the national interest above sectional
interest and the rights of individual States.
Over the next few years the Republican Party emerged as the main opposition
party to the Democratic Party in the
North. However, it had little support in the South. The party's first
presidential candidate was John C. Fremont
in 1856 who won 1,335,264 votes but was defeated by the Democratic
Party candidate, James Buchanan.
John C. Fremont was seen as too radical
by the electorate and in 1860 the party decided to select the more
moderate, Abraham Lincoln, as candidate.
Lincoln won the election by 1,866,462 votes (18 free states). His
opponents were Stephen A. Douglas (1,375,157
- 1 slave state), John Beckenridge
(847,953 - 13 slave states) and John Bell
(589,581 - 3 slave states).
In the 1860s, Thomas Nast, of Harper's
Weekly, developed the idea of the political cartoon. Nast
originated the idea of using animals to represent political parties.
In his cartoons the Democratic Party
was a donkey and the Republican Party, an elephant.
After the American Civil War the Republican
Party dominated the political system. Its support of protective tariffs
gained it the support of powerful industrialists and the Northern
urban areas. It was also popular with Northern and Midwestern farmers
and most of the immigrant groups,
except for the Irish, who tended to
support the Democratic Party.
Republican presidents included Ulysses Grant
(1869-1877), Rutherhood Hayes (1877-1881),
James Garfield (1881) and Chester
Arthur (1881-1885). Grover Cleveland
managed two victories (1885-89 and 1893-97) for the Democratic
Party, but the Republican dominance was reinforced by the election
of Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), William
McKinley (1897-1901), Theodore Roosevelt
(1901-1909), William Taft (1909-1913), Warren
Harding (1921-1923), Calvin Coolidge
(1923-1929) and Herbert Hoover (1929-33).
Hoover was blamed for the Economic Depression
and in 1932 was defeated by Franklin D.
Roosevelt. He held power from 1933 to his death in 1945 and the
Democrats remained in power under Harry S.
Truman (1945-53).
The Republicans selected the war hero, Dwight
D. Eisenhower as its candidate in 1952. During the election the
Republicans took a strong anti-communist stance and advocated lower
taxes for the rich. It also opposed civil
rights legislation being proposed by the liberal Democratic
Party candidate, Adlai Stevenson.
Eisenhower won by 33,936,252 votes to 27,314,922.
Eisenhower's vice-president, Richard Nixon
was narrowly defeated in 1960 by John F.
Kennedy (1961-1963) who was followed by another Democrat, Lyndon
B. Johnson (1963-1969).
Richard Nixon won two elections (1969-74)
but was forced to resign over the Watergate
Scandal. Other recent Republican presidents include Gerald
Ford (1974-1977) and Ronald Reagan
(1981-1989).
Thomas Nast, Third-Term Panic, Harper's
Weekly (1874)
(1)
Abraham
Lincoln, debate with Stephen Douglas
in
Alton, Illinois (15th October, 1858)
Stephen Douglas assumes
that I am in favor of introducing a perfect social and political equality
between the white and black races. These are false issues. The real
issue in this controversy is the sentiment on the part of one class
that looks upon the institution of slavery as a wrong, and of another
class that does not look upon it as a wrong. One of the methods of
treating it as a wrong is to make provision that it shall grow no
larger.
(2) Abraham
Lincoln, speech at Quincy, Illinois
(1858)
We have in this nation
the element of domestic slavery. The Republican Party think it wrong
- we think it is a moral, a social, and a political wrong. We think
it is wrong not confining itself merely to the persons of the States
where it exists, but that it is a wrong which in its tendency, to
say the least, affects the existence of the whole nation. Because
we thing it wrong, we propose a course of policy that shall deal with
it as a wrong. We deal with it as with any other wrong, insofar as
we can prevent it growing any larger, and so deal with it that in
the run of time there may be some promise of an end to it.
(3) The
journalist, Henry Villard, described
the Abraham Lincoln
and Stephen
A. Douglas debate
at Ottawa, Illinois, on 21st August, 1858.
The first joint debate
between Douglas and Lincoln, which I attended, took place on the afternoon
of August 21, 1858, at Ottawa, Illinois. It was the great event of
the day, and attracted an immense concourse of people from all parts
of the State.
Senator Douglas was very
small, not over four and a half feet height, and there was a noticeable
disproportion between the long trunk of his body and his short legs.
His chest was broad and indicated great strength of lungs. It took
but a glance at his face and head to convince one that they belonged
to no ordinary man. No beard hid any part of his remarkable, swarthy
features. His mouth, nose, and chin were all large and clearly expressive
of much boldness and power of will. The broad, high forehead proclaimed
itself the shield of a great brain. The head, covered with an abundance
of flowing black hair just beginning to show a tinge of grey, impressed
one with its massiveness and leonine expression. His brows were shaggy,
his eyes a brilliant black.
Douglas spoke first for
an hour, followed by Lincoln for an hour and a half; upon which the
former closed in another half hour. The Democratic spokesman commanded
a strong, sonorous voice, a rapid, vigorous utterance, a telling play
of countenance, impressive gestures, and all the other arts of the
practiced speaker.
As far as all external
conditions were concerned, there was nothing in favour of Lincoln.
He had a lean, lank, indescribably gawky figure, an odd-featured,
wrinkled, inexpressive, and altogether uncomely face. He used singularly
awkward, almost absurd, up-and-down and sidewise movements of his
body to give emphasis to his arguments. His voice was naturally good,
but he frequently raised it to an unnatural pitch.
Yet the unprejudiced mind
felt at once that, while there was on the one side a skillful dialectician
and debater arguing a wrong and weak cause, there was on the other
a thoroughly earnest and truthful man, inspired by sound convictions
in consonance with the true spirit of American institutions. There
was nothing in all Douglas's powerful effort that appealed to the
higher instincts of human nature, while Lincoln always touched sympathetic
cords. Lincoln's speech excited and sustained the enthusiasm of his
audience to the end.
(4) William
Seward, speech, Rochester, New York (25th October, 1858)
The Democratic Party derived
its strength originally from its adoption of the principles of equal
and exact justice to all men. So long as it practised this principle
faithfully, it was invulnerable. It became vulnerable when it renounced
the principle, and since that time it has maintained itself not by
virtue of its own strength, or even of its traditional merits, but
because there as yet had appeared in the political field no other
party that had the conscience and the courage to take up, and avow,
and practice the life-inspiring principle which the Democratic Party
surrendered.
At last, the Republican
Party had appeared. It avows now, as the Republican Party of 1800
did, in one word, its faith and its works, "Equal and exact justice
to all men." The secret of its assured success lies in that very
characteristic, which in the mouth of scoffers constitutes its great
and lasting imbecility and reproach. It lies in the fact that it is
a party of one idea; but that idea is a noble one - an idea that fills
and expands all generous souls - the idea of equality - the equality
of all men before human tribunals and human laws, as they are equal
before the divine tribunal and divine laws.
(5) Carl
Schurz, speech to members of the Republican
Party
in Massachusetts (18th April, 1859)
I wish the words of the
Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created free and
equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights," were
inscribed upon every gatepost within the limits of this republic.
From this principle the revolutionary fathers derived their claim
to independence; upon this they founded the institutions of this country;
and the whole structure was to be the living incarnation of this idea.
Shall I point out to you
the consequences of a deviation from this principle? Look at the slave
states. This is a class of men who are deprived of their natural rights.
But this is not the only deplorable feature of that peculiar organization
of society. Equally deplorable is it that there is another class of
men who keep the former in subjection. That there are slaves is bad;
but almost worse is that there are masters.
Are not the masters freemen?
No, sir! Where is their liberty of the press? Where is their liberty
of speech? Where is the man among them who dares to advocate openly
principles not in strict accordance with the ruling system? They speak
of a republican form of government, they speak of democracy; but the
despotic spirit of slavery and mastership combined pervades their
whole political life like a liquid poison. They do not dare to be
free lest the spirit of liberty become contagious.
The system of slavery has
enslaved them all, master as well as slave. What is the cause of all
this? It is that you cannot deny one class of society the full measure
of their natural rights without imposing restraints upon your own
liberty. If you want to be free, there is but one way - it is to guarantee
an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors.
(6) Henry
Villard reported on the the Republican
Party Convention in 1860. Villard supported William
H. Seward and was surprised when Abraham
Lincoln won the nomination.
I was enthusiastically
for the nomination of William H. Seward, who seemed to me the proper
and natural leader of the Republican Party ever since his great "irrepressible
conflict" speech in 1858. The noisy demonstrations of his followers,
and especially of the New York delegation in his favour, had made
me sure, too, that his candidacy would be irresistible. I therefore
shared fully the intense chagrin of the New York and other State delegations
when, on the third ballot, Abraham Lincoln received a larger vote
than Seward.
I had not got over the
prejudice against Lincoln with which my personal contact with him
in 1858 imbued me. It seemed to me incomprehensible and outrageous
that the uncouth, common Illinois politician, whose only experience
in public life had been service as a member of the State legislature
and in Congress for one term, should carry the day over the eminent
and tried statesman, the foremost figure, indeed, in the country.
(7) In
his book, Life and Times,
Frederick Douglass described the 1860
Presidential Election.
The presidential canvass
of 1860 was three sided, and each side had its distinctive doctrine
as to the question of slavery and slavery extension. We had three
candidates in the field. Stephen A. Douglas was the standard bearer
of what may be called the western faction of the old divided democratic
party, and John C. Breckenridge was the standard-bearer of the southern
or slaveholding, faction of that party. Abraham Lincoln represented
the then young, growing, and united republican party. The lines between
these parties and candidates were about as distinctly and clearly
drawn as political lines are capable of being drawn. The name of Douglas
stood for territorial sovereignty, or in other words, for the right
of the people of a territory to admit or exclude, to establish or
abolish, slavery, as to them might seem best. The doctrine of Breckenridge
was that slaveholders were entitled to carry their slaves into any
territory of the United States and to hold them there, with or without
the consent of the people of the territory; that the Constitution
of its own force carried slavery and protected it into any territory
open for settlement in the United States. To both these parties, factions,
and doctrines, Abraham Lincoln and the republican party stood opposed.
They held that the Federal Government had the right and the power
to exclude slavery from the territories of the United States, and
that that right and power ought to be exercised to the extent of confining
slavery inside the slave States, with a view to its ultimate extinction.
(8) Robert
Toombs, speech in the Georgia legislature (13th November, 1860)
Mr. Lincoln's Republican
Party all speak with one voice, and speak trumpet-tongued their fixed
purpose to outlaw $4 billion of our property in the territories, and
to put it under the ban of the empire in the states where it exists.
They declare their purpose to war against slavery until there shall
not be a slave in America, and until the African is elevated to a
social and political equality with the white man. Lincoln endorses
them and their principles, and in his own speeches declares the conflict
irrepressible and enduring, until slavery is everywhere abolished.
My countrymen, "if
you have nature in you, bear it not." Withdraw yourselves from
such a confederacy; it is your right to do so - your duty to do so.
I know not why the Abolitionists should object to it, unless they
want to torture and plunder you. If they resist this great sovereign
right, make another war of independence, for that then will be the
question; fight its battles over again - reconquer liberty and independence.
as for me, I will take any place in the great conflict for rights
which you may assign. I will take none in the federal government during
Mr. Lincoln's administration.
(9) General
George
McClellan,
McClellan's Own Story (1887)
Had I been successful in
my first campaign, the rebellion would perhaps have been terminated
without the immediate abolition of slavery. I believe that the leaders
of the radical branch of the Republican Party preferred political
control of one section of a divided country to being in the minority
in a restored Union. Not only did these people desire the abolition
of slavery, but its abolition in such a manner and under such circumstances
that the slaves would at once be endowed with the electoral franchise
and permanent control thus be secured through the votes of the ignorant
slaves.
(10) Samuel
Tilden, speech on the Republican Party at a meeting of the Democratic
Party in New York (11th March, 1868)
A complete and harmonious
restoration of the revolted states would have been effected if the
Republican Party had not proved to be totally incapable of acting
in the case with any large, wise, or firm statesmanship.
A magnanimous policy would
not only have completed the pacification of the country but would
have effected a reconciliation between the Republican Party and the
white race in the South. Every circumstance favored such a result.
The Republican Party possessed all the powers of the government, and
held sway over every motive of gratitude, fear, or interest. The Southern
people had become thoroughly weary of the contest; more than half
of them had been originally opposed to entering into it, and had done
so only when nothing was left to them but to choose on which side
they would fight.
All that was necessary
to heal the bleeding wounds of the country and to allow its languishing
industries to revive, was that the Republican Party - which boasts
its great moral ideas and its philanthropy - should rise to the moral
elevation of an ordinary pugilist and cease to strike its adversary
after it was down.
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