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The
Republican Party
was born in the early 1850s by anti-slavery activists and individuals who
believed that government should grant western lands to settlers free of
charge. The first informal meeting of the party took place in
Ripon,
Wisconsin,
a small town northwest of
Milwaukee.
The first official Republican meeting took place on July 6th, 1854, in
Jackson,
Michigan.
The name "Republican" was chosen because it alluded to equality and reminded
individuals of
Thomas Jefferson's
Democratic-Republican Party.
At the Jackson convention, the new party adopted a platform and nominated
candidates for office in
Michigan.
In 1856, the Republicans became a national party when
John C. Fremont
was nominated for President under the slogan: "Free soil, free labor, free
speech, free men, Fremont." Even though they were considered a "third
party"
because the
Democrats
and
Whigs
represented the two-party system at the time, Fremont received 33% of the
vote. Four years later,
Abraham Lincoln
became the first Republican to win the
White House.
The
Civil War
erupted in 1861 and lasted four grueling years. During the war,
against the advice of his cabinet, Lincoln signed the
Emancipation
Proclamation
that freed the slaves. The Republicans of their day worked to pass the
Thirteenth Amendment,
which outlawed slavery, the
Fourteenth,
which guaranteed equal protection under the laws, and the
Fifteenth,
which helped secure voting rights for African-Americans.
The Republican Party also played a leading role in securing women the right
to vote. In 1896, Republicans were the first major party to favor women's
suffrage. When the
19th Amendment
finally was added to the
Constitution,
26 of 36 state legislatures that had voted to ratify it were under
Republican control. The first woman elected to Congress was a Republican,
Jeanette Rankin
from
Montana
in 1917.
Presidents during most of the late nineteenth century and the early part of
the twentieth century were Republicans. While the Democrats and
Franklin Roosevelt
tended to dominate American politics in the 1930s and 40s, for 28 of the 40
years from 1952 through 1992, the White House was in Republican hands --
under Presidents
Eisenhower,
Nixon,
Ford,
Reagan
and
Bush.
Under the last two, Reagan and Bush, the United States became the world's
only superpower, winning the
Cold War
from the old
Soviet Union
and releasing millions from
Communist
oppression.
Behind all the elected officials and the candidates of any political party
are thousands of hard-working staff and volunteers who raise money, lick the
envelopes, and make the phone calls that every winning campaign must have
(see
Senate Campaign Laws).
The national structure of our party starts with the
Republican National Committee.
Each state has its own
Republican State Committee
with a Chairman and staff. The Republican structure goes right down to the
neighborhoods, where a Republican precinct captain every
Election Day
organizes Republican
workers to get out the vote.
Most states ask voters when they
register
to express party preference. Voters do not have to do so, but registration
lists let the parties know exactly which voters they want to be sure vote on
Election Day. Just because voters register as a Republican, they are not
required to vote that way -- many voters
split their tickets,
voting for candidates in both parties. But the national party is made up of
all registered Republicans in all 50 states. For the most part they are the
voters in Republican Presidential primaries and
caucuses.
They are the heart and soul of the party.
Republicans have a long and rich history with basic principles: individuals,
not government, can make the best decisions; all people are entitled to
equal rights; and decisions are best made close to home. The symbol of the
Republican Party is the
elephant.
During the mid-term elections way back in 1874, Democrats tried to scare
voters into thinking
President Grant
would seek to run for an unprecedented third term.
Thomas Nast,
a cartoonist for
Harper's Weekly,
depicted a Democratic jackass trying to scare a Republican elephant -- and
both symbols stuck. For a long time Republicans have been known as the "G.O.P."
And party faithfuls thought it meant the "Grand Old Party." But apparently
the original meaning (in 1875) was "gallant old party." And when automobiles
were invented it also came to mean, "get out and push." That's still a
pretty good slogan for Republicans who depend every campaign year on the
hard work of hundreds of thousands of volunteers to get out and vote and
push people to support the causes of the Republican Party.
