REPUBLICAN PARTY 



4976 



REPUBLICAN PARTY 



zerland was free. A constitutional monarchy 

 in which the monarch holds only a social title 

 is virtually a republic. The British Empire 

 with its self-governing colonies Canada, Aus- 

 tralia, New Zealand and South Africa is the 

 best representative of such a government. In 

 1919 the combined area of the republics of the . 

 world was 30,700,000 square miles, and their 

 combined population was 850,000,000, or more 

 than half the population of the world. If to 

 these totals we add those of the free British 

 Empire the total area is 41,500,000 square miles, 

 and the total population 1,250,000,000, or more 

 than three-fourths the population of the world. 



in the years 1854 to 1856 as a protest against 

 the extension of slavery. The name Repub- 

 lican was also used about 1792 by the followers 

 of Jefferson, and by the adherents of Henry 

 Clay and John Quincy Adams about 1825 (see 

 WHIG), but these names were current only a 

 few years, and in common usage the name Re- 

 publican is given only to the party which 

 "elected Lincoln to the Presidency in the autumn 

 of 1860. 



The Republican party owed its existence to 

 the effort to extend slavery into the territo- 

 ries, and to the inability or unwillingness of 

 the Whigs as a party to take vigorous steps in 



REPUBLICS OF THE WORLD IN 1917 



The white areas represent the growth of democracies within about 150 years. The black spaces 

 are autocratic monarchies and their dependencies ; horizontal shaded, the British Empire, whose citi- 

 zens are as free as those of republics ; crossed lines, constitutional monarchies, in which a large 

 measure of freedom exists. 



Older Republics. Governments bearing the 

 name of republics have existed in all ages 

 within the range of civilization. The ancient 

 Roman republic was originally an aristocracy 

 controlled by the patrician element; ambition 

 changed it to an empire. In ancient Greece 

 there was an illustrious example of pure de- 

 mocracy. The Italian republics of medieval 

 times were oligarchies. W.F.R. 



Related Subjects. Much correlative material 



will be found in the following articles in these 

 volumes : 



Aristocracy Oligarchy 



Government Theocracy 

 Monarchy 



REPUBLICAN PARTY, one of the great 

 political parties of the United States, organized 



opposition. The Northern Whigs were already 

 displeased by the passage and enforcement of 

 the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, but the Kan- 

 sas-Nebraska Bill led to open revolt. On Feb- 

 ruary 28, 1854, three months before the latter 

 bill was passed, a local mass meeting of voters 

 opposed to slavery met at Ripon, Wis., and 

 adopted resolutions declaring that if the Kan- 

 sas-Nebraska Bill became a law they would 

 "throw old party organizations to the winds, 

 and organize a new party on the sole issue of 

 the nonextension of slavery." The local party 

 was soon organized, and the name Republican 

 was suggested almost at once as suitable for 

 the new party. It was in Michigan, however, 

 on July 6, that the opposition to the extension 

 of slavery first led to a real party organization 



