REPUBLICAN PARTY, The The Re publican party was an inevitable outgrowth of the conditions which prevailed about the time of the repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1854. The Whigs, incapable of grappling with new problems, were rapidly disintegrating; no one of the sporadic parties sprouting in the political confusion of the time was based on broad enough principles to become a truly national organization; the Republican party, germinating in the Free Soil movement and inheriting Whig and Federalist traditions, hap pily combined the inspiration of a great moral idea with the enduring quality of sane poli cies in Federal administration. Its origin can not properly be ascribed to any particular date or place. The first known suggestion of the name was in a letter written by Horace Greeley. The earliest convention of import ance to adopt it was held at Jackson, Mich., 6 July 1854. Virtually coincident with the Michigan convention there were conventions in Maine, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Iowa ,• almost spontaneously the Republican party had become a strong national organization. On the roster of the 33d Con gress, the name ((Republican)) does not appear; in the 34th Congress, which met 3 Dec. 1855, there were in the Senate 15 Republicans, 42 Democrats and 5 Americans; in the House of Representatives there were 108 Republicans, 83 Democrats and 45 Americans. The Whigs had disappeared. Nathaniel P. Banks of Massa chusetts was chosen speaker of the House by a combination of Republicans and Americans, after a memorable contest. Steps were takep at once to put a ticket in the field for the approaching election of President. The chair men of the State committees of Maine, Ver mont, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin called an informal convention to meet at Pittsburgh, 22 Feb. 1856. A committee appointed at that meeting called a national convention to meet at Philadelphia, 17 June 1856, to nominate candidates for President and Vice-President. The call was addressed to athe people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, to the policy of the present administration, to the extension of slavery into the Territories, in favor of the admission of Kansas as a free State, and of restoring the action of the, Fed eral government to the principles of Washing ton and Jefferson?) John C. Fremont, of Cali fornia, was nominated for President, and Wil liam L. Dayton, of New Jersey, for Vice President, on a platform the most conspicuous plank of which read as follows: " Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism. ploygamy and slavery." It was essentially a one-idea convention, although resolutions were adopted favoring national aid for a railway to the Pacific Coast, and liberal appropriations for rivers and har bors; but the party was not long to remain thus limited in its mission. The convention of 1860, which nominated Abraham Lincoln for President, adopted resolutions which com mitted the new party to the doctrine of a pro tective tariff, in the following clause: " That, while providing revenue for the support of the general government by duties upon imports, sound policy requires such an adjustment of these imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interests of the whole country; and we •commend that policy of national ex changes which secures to the workingmen liberal wages, to agriculture remunerative prices, to mechanics and manu facturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor, and enterprise and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence."
The Republican party is thus seen almost from the beginning to have been committed to the protective policy which remains to-day one of its cardinal principles. The election of 1856 resulted in a Democratic victory. James Buchanan received 174 electoral votes; Fre mont received 114. It is perhaps fortunate that the new party did not then meet with success. Their candidate was a popular hero. No better name could have been selected about which to rally a new party alive with the crusading spirit. Had the party been success ful in 1856, however, the Civil War would doubtless have begun then, and Fremont by temperament and experience was ill-fitted to grapple with such a problem. The inspiration of the campaign which he led carried the Republican party up to the momentous suc cess of 1860. When the clouds broke, Lincoln providentially was at the head of the state, endowed beyond all other men of his time with the peculiar genius required to cope with the storm. The national convention at Chicago, 16-18 May 1860, nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, for President, and Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, for Vice-President. In the elec tion which followed Lincoln and Hamlin re ceived 180 electoral votes; all others received 123 electoral votes. In April immediately fol lowing Lincoln's inauguration Fort Sumter was fired upon and the Civil War began. The war occupied the four years of Lincoln's ad ministration. The Republican party was not only charged with the heavy work of ad ministration, but it was responsible for the preservation of the government When it en tered upon the war, the government was without military preparation. Congress and the Presi dent were compelled to build navies, raise armies, to provide money and to fight the bat tles of the republic. They were hampered by secession sympathizers in the South, and in the North, although the masses of the Democratic party and many of its leaders were thoroughly loyal. Lincoln called into his Cabinet Democrats like Stanton, Blair and Welles, and gave high military com mand to loyal officers with Democratic affilia tions. Logan, McClernand, McClellan and Butler were cases in point. Had it not been for this broad and statesmanlike attitude of Lincoln, who always acted on the theory that he was President of all the people, it doubted whether the Union would have been preserved. In the midst of the war, on 1 Jan. 1863, the proclamation of Emancipation went into effect. An election for President was held in November 1864. The Democratic party nominated Gen. George B. McClellan of New Jersey, for President, and George H. Pendle ton, of Ohio, for Vice-President. The prin cipal plank of its platform was a blunt dec laration that the war was a failure. The Republicans at Baltimore, 7 June 1864, re nominated Lincoln for President, with Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, for Vice-President. During the early days of the campaign, while military success seemed to be still far away, Lincoln, believing that he was likely to be de feated at the polls, began preparations for a Democratic successor, pledging himself to do everything in his power in the few months remaining to him to carry through the war and save the Union. His fears were not justi fied by the results. Lincoln received the electoral vote of every State not in the re bellion except Kentucky, Delaware and New Jersey-212 electoral votes; McClellan re ceived 21.