REPUBLICAN PARTY 



4977 



REPUBLICAN PARTY 



which formally adopted the name Republican. 

 In Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio, Illinois, Wis- 

 consin and other states, conventions were held 

 during the summer of 1854, and almost at once 

 the Republican party became a power in the 

 North. In the fall of 1854 the Republicans 

 elected eleven United States Senators and se- 

 cured a plurality in the House of Representa- 



This sudden growth was due to the fact that 

 nearly all opponents of the extension of slav- 

 ery at once joined the party. Among the Re- 

 publicans were most of the antislavery Whigs, 

 including Lincoln, Seward and Greeley; all the 

 Free-Soilers, like John P. Hale and Charles 

 Sumner (see FREE-SOIL PARTY) ; most of the 

 Know-Nothings, including Nathaniel P. Banks 

 and Schuyler Colfax, and a few Abolitionists 

 who felt that the new party offered the best 

 means of real opposition to slavery. Besides 



n complex elements there were a few North- 

 ern antislavery Democrats, like Simon Cam- 

 eron, Hannibal Hamlin and William Cullen 

 Bryant, who favored the Republican cause. 



These elements were all represented in the 

 fir.-t national convention of the party, held in 

 Philadelphia in June, 1856. All the Northern 

 states sent delegates, as did Virginia, Maryland, 

 Delaware and Kentucky. The platform's chief 

 plank declared that it was both ''the right and 

 the duty of Congress to prohibit in the terri- 

 tories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy 

 and slavery." John C. Fremont, the first Re- 

 publican candidate for President, received 

 1 4 1,000 popular and 114 electoral votes to 

 Buchanan's 1,800,000, and 174. Fremont car- 

 n.il the North, with the exception of five 

 states; Buchanan carried the South. The Re- 

 publican party had created an issue which for 

 :r>t time established what became notable 

 later as the "solid South." Four years there- 

 after, though still a minority party, it was 

 stronger than any one of the Democratic divi- 

 sions, and elected Lincoln as President. The 

 platform of 1860 is noteworthy for its modera- 

 tion ; it denounced threats of disunion and de- 

 clared that the rights of the individual states 

 must be held sacred; but it also stated that 

 normal condition of all the territory of 

 United States is that of freedom, wludi 

 Congress is bound to preserve and defend." 



Of years later the War of Secession had so 

 crystallized the issues that the Republican plat- 

 form openly declared slavery the cause of the 

 and demanded its "utter and complete ex- 



rom the soil of the republic 

 312 



Tucked away inconspicuously in these plat- 

 forms was a plank favoring a protective tariff, 

 an issue which later gave the party a powerful 

 hold upon the nation. When the war was 

 ended and slavery abolished, the Republican 

 party was left without positive aim, its great 

 mission having been accomplished. In this ex- 

 tremity the party leaders secured the nomina- 

 tion of Grant, who was not a politician, and 

 who had been a Democrat before the war. It 

 is, indeed, quite certain that if Grant had not 

 been nominated by the Republicans he would 

 have been chosen by the Democrats. Grant's 

 personal popularity, added to the disfranchise- 

 ment of the whites in the South and the en- 

 franchisement of the negroes, made his election 

 certain. The Republican party clung to the 

 old war issues, which were the chief themes of 

 its orators, and did not see the necessity of 

 newer and more vital questions. In 1872 a few 

 leaders, including Sumner, Greeley, Schurz and 

 Charles Francis Adams, organized the Liberal 

 Republican party, which sought to quiet the 

 sectional bitterness and bring forward new is- 

 sues. But the Republican party, secure in pub- 

 lic confidence because of past achievements and 

 its vigorous defense of the protective tariff, 

 reflected Grant. 



Grant's second administration was marked by 

 the panic of 1873, the Credit Mobilier scandals, 

 the exposure of the Whisky Ring and other 

 events which tended toward disquiet. The 

 nomination and election of Hayes, followed by 

 the end of reconstruction in the South, ended 

 the discussion of war issues. The topics of the 

 day then became civil service, bimetallism, re- 

 sumption of specie payments and other finan- 

 cial issues, and, lastly, the tariff. From the be- 

 ginning of its exiMriiee the party had been 

 committed to a high protective tariff, and on 

 this issue it won many elections. In 1884 

 Cleveland was elected chiefly because the Re- 

 publican mugwumps declined to vote forBlaine, 

 and in 1896 free ,-ilver was the deciding issue, 

 but in every oth. i election the tariff question 

 has been uppermost. The high-water mark in 

 tariff legislation was the McKinley Bill, which 

 brought about the election of William Me Kin- 

 ley as President in 1896; that year the issue 

 winch overshadowed the tariff, however, was 

 the money question free silver or the gold 

 standard. Only twice in 1892, when Cleve- 

 land was elected, and in 1912, when Wilson was 

 chosendid the Democratic policy of low tariff 

 secure a victory. The election of President 

 Wilson, however, was primarily due to a breach 



