History of the Repubican Party: What it Has Stood For, and what it Stands ...

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Introduction

This is a History. It is not a political treatise or special plea. It is, in brief form, a review of the history of the Republican party of the United States from its origin to the present time. It aims to present a concise, coherent narrative of events and achievements, with only such explanation and comment as may be necessary to make the relation of cause and effect clear to the reader's mind and thus to indicate what the Republican party has stood for in the life of the American nation, what it stands for to-day and what it promises for the future. If, as the author frankly desires and expects, the net effect of this presentation shall be to incline a greater number of the voters of this country, and particularly of the millions of new and newly-enfranchised citizens, to the support of the Republican party, this result will be accomplished, not by persuasiveness of rhetoric or passion of partisan appeal, but rather by the irresistible logic of facts which are matters of record.

It is also the hope of the author that these pages will convince a vast number of those who are about to exercise for the first time the full privileges of American citizenship that it is their duty to affiliate themselves sincerely and loyally with one or the other of the two great parties which have so long existed in American politics. Politics is the science of government. Nicholas Murray Butler has well said : "Politics is not office-seeking; politics is not the use of devious arts of the demagogue or the self-seeker to secure power over men. Politics is one of the noblest and finest words in our language. It is nothing but the doctrine of how to live together happily and helpfully in organized society. In an autocracy, whether imperialist or socialist, there will be no need for politics. In an autocracy our politics will be made for us by some one

The Republican Party r"

else. In a democratic republic we make our own politics. In a republic every good citizen is or should be an active politician, because free government will not take care of itself. American institutions will not preserve themselves. They need the care, they need the devotion, they need the protection of thoughtful, high-minded and patriotic men and women who are deeply interested in politics and deeply concerned about politics."

American government is a government by political parties. It was so intended at the foundation of our constitutional system. The very genius of our institutions requires that there shall be two great parties, one to exercise the authority and bear the responsibility of conducting the actual government, the other to serve as check and critic, not obstructive but constructive, the two alternating in power as their respective policies and theories of legislation and administration may from time to time best serve the varying needs of the nation. It is in this way that the best results of constructive statesmanship have hitherto been attained and the greatest progress made in the science of government.

This system was gradually developed from the time of the Revolution until in 1832 it assumed its present form, with popular nominating conventions for elective officers and with party platforms, or declarations of principles and programmes of action, announcing to the electorate the issues to be determined and the policies purposed to be pursued. This system of representative and responsible party government has become firmly established as fundamental to the American Republic. It is true that our history teems with the records of "independent," "third party" or other like movements, some of which for a brief space have had more or less spectacular careers. But the great lesson which their record teaches is their general futility, if not at times actual mischief.

It is a literal fact that not one such party has ever succeeded either in perpetuating itself or in justifying its existence by accomplishing its aims. Thus the Abolition party arose in 1840, but exercised no dominant influence in a single state.

Introduction

In 1844, however, it did draw enough votes away from Henry

Clay to defeat him and to elect James K. Polk, thus actually j

injuring the cause which it professed to serve. It was left not I

for that or any like organization but for the Republican party

finally to abolish slavery. So the *'Anti-Masonic," the "Know

Nothing," the "Constitutional Union" and other parties before

the Civil War ran their little courses, caused some agitation,

often mere irritation and at all times more evil than good.

They disappeared without a single enduring and beneficent

achievement to their credit. In like manner there have been

many similar organizations or so called parties since the civil

war such as Greenback, Liberal, Silver, Populist, Socialist,

Socialist-Labor and Prohibition. Not one of them has ever

even approximated control of the government. Not one has

ever achieved its purpose. One of the most notable and most

recent examples has been that of the Prohibition party, which

has existed for many years, but which at the end entered into

a decline and saw the very work which it had vainly striven

to do performed by the two great parties against which it

had indiscriminately waged its futile warfare.

With this instructive record of minor party inefficiency and failure before them, American citizens would be blind indeed if they did not perceive the path of duty. That duty is to choose intelligently and on principle between the two great parties which alone are capable of* patriotic efficiency; to affiliate themselves loyally with the party of their deliberate choice; and to participate actively in its management and conduct. It is generally recognized to be the duty of every American citizen to vote at elections. Similarly it is the duty of every one to participate in the primary elections of his ' or her party. If citizens of the Republic were generally to abstain from voting we should expect the affairs of the country to be neglected and abused. So if members of a party abstain from interesting themselves in its direction it is bound to suffer abuse. It is from such neglect on the part of citizens that the evils of party management have arisen.

The Republican Party

No rational and loyal American citizen thinks of asserting his * 'independence" of the Republic or of setting up a rival government. Even if he wishes to have changes and reforms made in the government, he seeks to make them "from the inside." Since, then, it is the established principle of the nation that its government shall be conducted through the agency of two major parties, it becomes scarcely less incumbent upon citizens to recognize those parties, to exercise their political activities in them and through them, and, if ever they desire changes in them, to make them "from the inside." To assert independence of all party affiliation and to support only such party candidates and measures as may occasionally appeal to us would be only a little less illogical and reprehensible than to withhold complete allegiance to the government itself and to support it only when it particularly pleases us to do so.

The essential fallacy and futility of minor parties can be perceived in their very nature and purpose. They are designed to serve some special interest, either temporary or local. No governmental policy worthy of the name can be based upon such issues. It must be comprehensive of all parts of the nation and of permanent or at least enduring application. For example, the construction of a Pacific Railroad or an Isthmian Canal was a great project, worthy of advocacy in a national party platform. But it would manifestly have been absurd to found a political party upon such an issue. The same may be said of the various issues of the present day. They are of indisputable importance, but to base a party upon any one of them alone would be futile and absurd. They must be dealt with by a party which takes a comprehensive view of them all and which will not dispose of them in accordance with some special, local or temporary interest,* but will act in conformity with the general and permanent interests of the whole nation.

With this conception of the party and of the citizen's duty to the party before us, this history of the Republican party is presented in confidence that its facts of record will afford convincing reasons to multitudes of voters for affiliating them-

Introduction

I selves with it as the party the better calculated to serve the best interests of the American people. Its very name is auspicious of that fact. There were others before it, two of them, which bore the same name; applied to them without special significance, as has been the case with many other party designations. Jefferson called his party the Republican, in contradistinction to the Federalist, though indeed the names would have been far more logically and fittingly applied if they had been exchanged. Again the name was used for a few years by the party opposed [

to Jacksonian Democracy, until it was merged with the Whigs. Neither of those short-lived organizations had in its purpose or in its achievements anything particularly to justify its use of the name. That was reserved for the present party which has now endured through a triumphant career twice as long as the united ages of its two predecessors.

Republican: The Party of the Republic. Republic: The Res Publica, the Common Wealth. The derivation of the name denotes its purport. It is the party not of a class or of a section or of a period, but of the general and lasting good of the whole people. It means the party which knows no sectional divisions on geographical lines, but has regard for North and South, for East and West, alike. It is the party which recognizes no distinctions of caste or class or social rank, but serves equally the interests of rich and poor, of employer and employe, of capital and labor, of domestic industry and external commerce ; acting always upon the impregnable principle that the whole is greater than any of its parts, and that to promote the welfare of the whole nation is the best possible means of promoting the welfare of all the parts. It is the party which aims at once at progress in the arts of civilization and in all the beneficent conditions and circumstances of human life, individual and social, and at the conservation of those fundamental rights of person and of property which are essential to the durability of all government and even civilization itself.

These are the things for which a party called Republican must unceasingly stand, if it is to be worthy of its name. It is

The Republican Party for the reader of these pages to judge, from the written record, how faithfully and efficiently the present Republican party has stood for them for now more than threescore years, how truly it stands for them today and how trustworthy is its promise to stand for them in the future. Upon such judgment will rest his or her decision to become or not to become affiliated with the Republican party.

being divided into two, one free and one slave; and New Mexico and Arizona would obviously not be ready for statehood for many years. With Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon and other northern territories rapidly preparing for entrance into the Union, each having claims based upon fitness that could not be denied, it was evident that the Missouri Compromise could not prevent the free states from soon outnumbering the slave.

Therefore in 1854 the Pro-Slavery party, with its last control of Congress, enacted the Kansas-Nebraska bill. That measure was a virtual repeal of the Missouri Compromise in that it permitted slavery and slave states north of the line which the latter act had established. It did not, it is true, command the existence of slavery nor declare the power of Congress to require its extension in the northern territories. But it established the principle of '^Squatter Sovereignty," under which the residents, even, temporary, of any territory might determine whether it should be free or slave. This was in the face of the constitutional provision that Congress should make all laws for the government of territories before their admission to the Union as states as well as in violation of the compromise of 1820.

The result was the precipitation of the final conflict over sectionalism, with a complete breaking up of the old parties and a general political realignment. The Democratic party was rent asunder, a large proportion of its members in the North refusing to sanction the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The Whig party practically went out of existence. The radical Free Soil party arose in considerable strength. Obviously the time was ripe for a new national organization which should grapple with the great issues rising dominant above all others which had been matters of contention between Whigs and Democrats. These latter issues had, indeed, existed from the beginning of the nation and were in themselves of great moment. They included questions of the tariff, banking, internal improvements stich as roads and canals, the power of the President's veto and strict or liberal construction of the constitution. Some of them

Origin

dated from the days of Hamilton and Jefferson ; some of them have persisted until the present time.

But at the middle of the last century far-seeing and thoughtful men perceived that all these were subordinate, for the time, to the two supreme issues of liberty and union. There was little use in debating what should be the policy of the nation until it was positively and permanently determined whether there was to be one nation or two. And if it was to remain one nation, all questions of economics must be held in abeyance to that of whether it was to be a nation of free or of slave labor. So, during the protracted debate in Congress over the Kansas- Nebraska bill, there arose an immeasurably wider and more significant discussion throughout the free states of the North as to what should be done to meet the menace of that measure.

The logic of events drew together men of three parties: Democrats, Whigs, and Free Soilers; together with many humanitarians who had not been closely affiliated with any party. Among the Democrats were Nathaniel P. Banks and George S. Boutwell of Massachusetts, Oliver P. Morton of Indiana, Lyman Trumbull and John M. Palmer of Illinois, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Francis P. Blair of Missouri, Montgomery Blair of Maryland, and Preston King and William Cullen Bryant of New York. The Whigs contributed Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, Zachariah Chandler and Jacob M. Howard of Michigan, Henry S. Lane and Schuyler Colfax of Indiana, Jacob W. Grimes of Iowa, Thomas Corwin, Benjamin F. Wade and John Sherman of Ohio, George Ashmun of Massachusetts, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and William H. Seward, E. D. Morgan and Horace Greeley of New York. From the ranks of the Free Soil party came Charles Sumner, Henry Wilson, Horace Mann, John G. Palfrey and Charfes Francis Adams of Massachusetts, Owen Lovejoy of Illinois, Joshua R. Giddings, Edward Wade and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, George W. Julian of Indiana and David Wilmot of Pennsylvania. Cordially associated with these and lending to them their incomparable intellectual and spiritual influence were the writers and thinkers of the age : Ralph Waldo Emerson, James Russell Lowell, George William Curtis, John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Ward Beecher, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Julia Ward Howe. No other party was ever organized with so distinguished and authoritative an array of men and women as its leaders and directors.

Many of these men had been strong partisan opponents of each other. Abraham Lincoln as a Whig and Lyman Trumbull as a Democrat were rivals in a contest for the senatorship from Illinois. But all were now agreed that in the presence of issues that overshadowed all their former party differences they must agree to hold these latter in abeyance and to unite for the settlement of the former. Yet to some extent they brought into the composition of the new party the best characteristics of the old ones. The Whigs, who formed not only a plurality but probably a considerable majority of the combination, impressed upon it their broad and liberal views of constitutional construction. The Democrats contributed a resolute loyalty to the Union, devotion to the legitimate rights of the states and a fine conception of the equal rights of all men under the law. The Free Soilers who, more than either of the others, had been a party of one idea, infused the whole with their passionate determination that there should be no further extension of slavery.

This last named principle was indeed the foremost and strongest in the minds of all. There was no purpose to interfere with slavery where it lawfully existed or where it might be lawfully extended under the terms of the Missouri Compromise. Though all believed with Lincoln that the Union could not permanently exist half slave and half free, they had sufficient faith in the superior virtues of free labor to believe that in time the problem would be solved by the irresistible force of economic laws, and that the institution of slavery would perish through its own unsoundness. They were, however, inflexibly determined that slavery should not be extended into the territories which had been dedicated to freedom. All

Origin

through the spring and early summer of 1854 meetings were held and correspondence was conducted, culminating in a mass meeting at Ripon, Wisconsin, at which it was formally resolved that if the Kansas-Nebraska bill was enacted they would "throw old party organizations to the winds and organize a new party on the sole issue of the non-extension of slavery." The chief organizer of that meeting was A. E. Bovay, who had been in correspondence upon the subject with Horace Greeley and who at that meeting proposed that the new organization be known as the Republican party.

It was of course necessary to adopt a new name. The Whigs were the most numerous members of the new body, but they could not expect the Democrats to call themselves Whigs. Neither, of course, would the Whigs consent to be called Democrats, even if that name had not belonged to the party which they were about to fight. Neither Whigs nor Democrats would be known as Free Soilers. In those circumstances the suggestion of "Republican" was most felicitous. Democrats remembered that it had been adopted by Jefferson. Whigs recalled *the use of it by the founders of their own party in opposition to Jackson. Free Soilers were reminded that Jefferson, in the Ordinance of 1787 which he drafted, was the pioneer Free ^ Soiler who made the Northwest Territory free and would have made the Southwest similarly free if his will could have prevailed.

The formal adoption of the name and organization of the party were reserved to a little later date. It was on July 6, 1854. The place was a grove of giant oaks at Jackson, Michigan. There a state convention was held of Whigs, Democrats and Free Soilers opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska bill. Jacob M. Howard was chairman. A platform was adopted denouncing slavery as a "relic of barbarism," demanding that Congress restore and maintain the restrictions imposed upon it by the Missouri Compromise, holding in abeyance all other political issues and party differences until that paramount question should be settled, and pledging co-operation under the name of the Republican party. Similar action was taken at conventions in other western states a week later. It was suggested by some that a national convention be called, but Seward and others opposed such action as premature and it was not done. But throughout the free states of the North there were nominated for Congress either avowedly Republican candidates or Whigs and Free Soilers who were ready to coalesce with the Republicans.

The result was that at the elections in the fall of 1854 the new party, not yet six months old, polled a majority of the votes in about half the states, secured the election of a number of United States Senators and elected a large delegation to the House of Representatives. When the House thus elected met for organization in the fall of 1855 it was divided among a number of factions, not one of which had a majority. But so numerous were the Republicans that with the help of some allies they were able, after a struggle which lasted from December 3, 1855, to February 2, 1856, on the 133rd ballot to elect Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts as Speaker. Banks, who had begun work as a bobbin boy in a cotton mill, had been a Democrat but, as already noted, had been among the foremost organizers of the Republican party and thus became the first Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. He filled that difficult place in those supremely trying times with such ability and fairness that during his entire term not one of his parliamentary rulings was disputed. After this notable victory at the polls in 1854 there was some reaction in 1855, yet there was really much growth of party strength and confident preparations were made for a national campaign in 1856.

CHAPTER II The First Campaign

The Republican party was conspicuously a party of the people in both its origin and formation. Instead of being organized and promulgated from a national centre, it began in local and community meetings. During the first two years of its existence these local bodies extended themselves to state conventions. Finally, in its third year, it essayed a national convention and a national organization. In this movement Michigan, which had been the scene of the party's birth and of its first state convention, fittingly took the lead On the recommendation of the Michigan state committee the state committees of all the states in which the party had been organized issued on January 17, 1856, a call for a national conventioii to be held at Pittsburgh on February 22 following. This was not to be a nominating convention nor one with a stated proportionate representation, like the conventions of the present time, but rather a national mass meeting for conference and council. It was largely attended by representative men from every state from Maine to California. There were Whigs, Democrats, Free Soilers, "Know Nothings" and others, all now fully merged into the Republican party and called by no other name. The permanent chairman was Francis P. Blair of Missouri, a former Democrat who had been one of the close friends of Andrew Jackson. An address to the nation was drafted by Henry J. Raymond and adopted by the convention, and a committee of which George W. Julian was chairman prepared and issued a call for a national nominating convention to be held at Philadelphia on June 17, 1856, the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill.

This first national nominating convention of the Republican party was singularly spontaneous and informal. No fixed rule for the representation of the various states was followed, but each state sent as many delegates as it considered its fair quota. Delegates were present from every northern state, and also from the three border states of Delaware, Maryland and Kentucky. The gathering was called to order by Edwin D. Morgan of New York, afterwards Governor of the state and United States Senator. Robert Emmet, a nephew of the famous Irish patriot of that name, was made temporary chairman. Later in the day Henry S. Lane of Indiana was made permanent chairman. An informal ballot was taken for a candidate for President of the United States with the very decisive result that General John C. Fremont, the ''Pathfinder of the Rocky- Mountains" and the first United States Senator from California, received 359 votes ; John McLean of Ohio, 196 ; Charles Sumner, United States Senator from Massachusetts, 2; and William H. Seward, Senator from New York, 1. A formal ballot resulted still more strongly in Fremont's favor and his nomination was then made unanimous amid great enthusiasm. An informal ballot for Vice-President gave 259 votes for William L. Dayton, who had been a senator from New Jersey ; 110 for Abraham Lincoln, formerly Representative in Congress from Illinois; 46 for Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts; and a few for each of a dozen other men. Dayton was then formally and unanimously nominated, completing the ticket.

Before the balloting for President there was received a message from the managers of a faction of the American or "Know Nothing'' party asking for a conference with a view to co-operation and union. The American party had held a convention, had nominated Millard Fillmore for President and had refused to commit itself against the extension of slavery. Thereupon a considerable faction, including most of the delegates from the New England States and some of those from Pennsylvania and the West, withdrew, organized a bolting convention and nominated Fremont for President on a platform

The First Campaign

opposed to the extension of slavery. It was this faction which sought co-operation with the Republicans. Its message was carefully considered by the Republican convention, which finally decided not to accept the overture for co-operation. The Republicans would have welcomed '*Know Nothing*' support for their candidates, but they were absolutely unwilling to identify or associate themselves in any way with that party in its intolerant and proscriptive attitude toward citizens of foreign birth.

The platform which was adopted by this first Republican national convention, and on which the ensuing campaign was fought, made no mention of the Republican party by name but spoke of the "convention of delegates'' and issued its call ''addressed to the 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 extension of slavery into free territory ; in favor of admitting Kansas as a free state, of restoring the action of the Federal government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson." It demanded the maintenance of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution and the preservation of the rights of the states and of the Union of the states. It took strong ground against the extension of slavery into the free territories, against the terrorism and oppression which had been applied to Kansas in an effort to impose slavery upon that would-be state, and demanded the admission of Kansas to the Union as a free state. It denounced the notorious "Ostend Manifesto*' as a "highwayman's plea." Its only references to other political or economic issues were a demand for federal aid for the building of the Pacific Railroad and for the river and harbor improvements needed by commerce.

The campaign which followed was marked with tremendous enthusiasm and excitement throughout the North and with general apathy in the South. The Democrats had nominated James Buchanan and the remnant of the Whigs had accepted the

**Know Nothing" nomination of Fillmore. In the South the contest was confined to these two candidates with a practical certainty that Buchanan would run far in the lead. All through the North, from east to west, however, the tripartite contest was waged with a vigor and intensity which had never been seen before, not even in the ''Hard Cider" campaign for Harrison in 1840. Mass meetings and marching clubs were everywhere, while the press and pulpit were as impassioned as the stump-speakers. The Republicans were at first confident of success. But the October elections disappointed them and in November they met with defeat. Too many of the old Whigs voted for Fillmore. True, they carried for him only the one state of Maryland. But in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California they kept enough votes away from Fremont to leave the latter in a minority and give Buchanan a plurality though not a majority. Had Fremont carried those four states he would have been elected. As it was he had only 114 electoral votes to Buchanan's 174. The popular vote stood : Buchanan, 1,838,169; Fremont, 1,341,264; Fillmore, 874,534. In eleven slave states no votes were cast for the Republican ticket. The party had no organization there, nor would it have been safe for it to attempt to make one.

The result was discouraging to some of the most sanguine members of the Republican party, but to the great majority it was an incentive to renewed and increased efforts for the next campaign. It also indicated the need of more expert leadership and a more comprehensive platform of principles. The party must not be so much a party of one idea. While it still recognized the two paramount issues, it must pay some attention to others and present a programme of constructive statesmanship. The battle-cry of 1856 had been "Free soil, free speech, free press, free men, Fremont!" That aroused enthusiasm. But something more than mere enthusiasm was needed to win over the rest of the Whigs and still further to rend the Democratic party asunder. This was made the more evident when, in March, 1857, the Dred Scott decision was

The First Campaign

rendered by the Supreme Court declaring that Congress had no power to prohibit the extension of slavery to the territories, despite the constitutional provision that "the Congress shall have power to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory belonging to the United States." Obviously this decision practically outlawed the paramount issue upon which the Republican party had been founded and destroyed the party's reason for existence. It was folly to demand that Congress should prevent the extension of slavery into the territories, when the Supreme Court had decided that it had no power to do so. Republicans generally denounced the decision as unsound and an unwarrantable meddling by the judiciary in a purely political matter and made it plain that they would seek its reversal. Nevertheless the decision had to be respected for the time and it made it necessary for the party to put other planks in its platform.