The Republican Party
Leading the way on issues for African
Americans
Did you know...
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The roots of
the Republican party lay in the opposition to slavery
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Republicans
dealt the death blow to slavery with
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Republicans
passed a Civil Rights Act in 1866 recognizing blacks as
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Republicans
proposed the 14th Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1868
Republicans
proposed and passed the 15th Amendment, which guaranteed voting rights
regardless of race, creed or previous condition of servitude.
From the beginning
Abolishing slavery. Free speech. Women's suffrage. In today's
stereotypes, none of these sounds like a typical Republican issue, yet they are
stances the Republican Party, in opposition to the Democratic Party, adopted
early on.
Reducing the government. Streamlining the bureaucracy. Returning power to the
states. These issues don't sound like they would be the promises of the party
of Lincoln, the party that fought to preserve the national union, but they are,
and logically so. With a core belief in the idea of the primacy of individuals,
the Republican Party, since its inception, has been at the forefront of the
fight for individuals' rights in opposition to a large, bloated government.
The Republican Party has always thrived on challenges and difficult positions.
Its present role as leader of the revolution in which the principles of
government are being re-evaluated is a role it has traditionally embraced.
At the time of its founding, the Republican Party was organized as an answer to
the divided politics, political turmoil, arguments and internal division,
particularly over slavery that plagued the many existing political parties in
the
A staunch Anti-Nebraska Democrat, Alvan E. Bovay, like his fellow Americans,
was disillusioned by this atmosphere of confusion and division. Taking
advantage of the political turmoil caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bovay
united discouraged members from the Free Soil Party, the Conscience Whigs and
the Anti-Nebraska Democrats. Meeting in a Congregational church in
On July 6, 1854, in
Even though he ran on a third-party ticket, Frémont managed to capture a third
of the vote, and the Republican Party began to add members throughout the land.
As tensions mounted over the slavery issue, more anti-slavery Republicans began
to run for office and be elected, even with the risks involved with taking this
stance. Republican Sen. Charles Sumner of
The First Republican
With the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the Republicans firmly
established themselves as a major party capable of holding onto the White House
for 60 of the next 100 years. Faced with the first shots of the Civil War
barely a month after his inauguration, preserving the Union was
Amid the fierce and bloody battles of the Civil War, the
Fully sensitive to the symbolism of their name, the Republicans worked to deal
the death blow to slavery with
During Reconstruction, the mostly Democratic South, which had seceded from both
the
Continuing to take advantage of their majority, Republicans proposed the 14th
Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1868, stating: "All
persons born or naturalized in the
That same year the Republican Congress also passed the National Eight Hour Law,
which, though it applied only to government workers, brought relief for
overworked federal employees by limiting the work day to eight hours.
A New National Party
The roots of the Republican Party lay in the opposition to slavery, which
took a variety of forms in the pre-Civil War era. Some opponents of slavery
looked to political methods as a way of attacking the institution. Unable to
find sufficient support in the dominant DEMOCRATIC or WHIG parties, antislavery
men launched the
The new party got off to a shaky start. It faced opposition not only from the
Democrats but also from the so-called "Know Nothings," who formed yet
another party. Out of this political chaos came a new party system, dominated
by the issue of slavery, which most benefited the young Republican Party.
Building on a base of former Free-Soilers, anti-Nebraska Democrats, and
antislavery Whigs, the Republican Party stood primarily for a ban on slavery in
the territories. In the presidential campaign of 1856 the Republicans heralded
their candidate, John C. Frémont, with the chant, "Free Soil, Free Labor,
Free Speech, Free Men, and Frémont." In a losing effort Frémont captured
33% of the popular vote.
By 1860, Republicans were in a strong position. The Whig party had disappeared,
the Know-Nothing party had faded, and the Democratic Party was deeply divided
over the issue of slavery. In 1860 a four-way presidential race brought victory
to the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, who won a decisive majority of
the electoral votes. However, the Republican victory was a narrow sectional
one. Outside of the North the party carried only
Republicans lead on Civil Rights Issues
Some people have argued that Republicans fought to give blacks equal rights
and then the vote as a way of wresting control of the South away from the
Democrats. While it is true that almost all blacks voted Republican, these were
very dangerous and controversial issues at the time. For whatever reason, many
Republican politicians risked their careers on that period's "third
rail" of politics and managed to not only abolish slavery, but eventually
even established a black's right to vote as well. In fact, many blacks even
held elected office and were influential in state legislatures. And, in 1869,
the first blacks entered Congress as members of the Republican Party,
establishing a trend that was not broken until 1935 when the first black
Democrat finally was elected to Congress.
Meanwhile, Republicans continued being elected to the White House. In 1868,
Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant won the presidency easily and was re-elected in
1872. Although he seemed a bit bewildered by the transition from the military
life of a general to being president, under Grant the Republican commitment to sound
money policies continued, and the Department of Justice and the Weather Bureau
were established. The Republicans in Congress continued to boldly set the
agenda, and in 1870 they proposed and passed the 15th Amendment, which
guaranteed voting rights regardless of race, creed or previous condition of
servitude. Setting another precedent two years later, the Republican Congress
turned its sights toward women's issues and authorized equal pay for equal work
performed by women employed by federal agencies.
It was around this time that the symbol of the elephant for the Republican
Party was created by Thomas Nast, a famous illustrator and caricaturist for The
New Yorker. In 1874, a rumor that animals had escaped from the New York City
Zoo coincided with worries surrounding a possible third-term run by Grant. Nast
chose to represent the Republicans as elephants because elephants were clever,
steadfast and controlled when calm, yet unmanageable when frightened.
But, embracing a tradition established by George Washington and the Republican
Party, which had gone on record opposing a third term for any president,
President Grant did not run for re-election in 1876. Instead, in one of the
most bitterly disputed elections in American history, Republican Rutherford B.
Hayes won the presidency by the margin of one electoral vote. After the
election, cooperation between the White House and the Democratic-controlled
House of Representatives was nearly impossible. Nevertheless, Hayes managed to
keep his campaign promises. He cautiously withdrew federal troops from the
South to allow them to shake off the psychological yoke of being a conquered
land, took measures to reverse the myriad inequalities suffered by women in
that period and adopted the merit system within the civil service.
Not surprisingly, the Republican appeal held in 1880 when the party won its
sixth consecutive presidential election with the election of the Civil War hero
James A. Garfield and also managed to regain small majorities in both the House
and the Senate. Following
Suddenly the Republicans' fortunes changed, and embarking on a decade-long
period of quick reversals, the Republicans lost the 1884 election. But by this
time the party had firmly established itself as a permanent force in American
politics by not only preserving the
Sources: Grolier Encyclopedia, Republican National Committee