| Founded: | March 20, 1854 |
| Dissolved: | July 16, 1872 |
| Succeeded by: | American Party, National Party |
| Ideology: | Abolitionism, protectionism |
The Republican Party was a short-lived political party in the United States that advocated for the abolition of slavery. The party came to power in 1860, taking control of the presidency and Congress with the secession of the Southern states, and was largely blamed for the loss in the Civil War.
History[]
Abraham Lincoln
The Republican Party was formed in 1854 as a successor to the Whig Party. Members were strongly in favor of abolishing or at least limiting the expansion of slavery. They first contested a presidential election in 1856, when they scared Southerners by earning 114 electoral votes despite only winning a handful of Northern states. The election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 led to the secession of 11 Southern states and the beginning of the First American Civil War.
Under Lincoln's leadership, the war effort slowly faltered until finally resulting in a loss. Lincoln narrowly won reelection in 1864 amid the struggles. The public blamed Lincoln and the Republicans for the loss. Lincoln's strategy of endlessly rotating generals seemed to have resulted in a disorganized strategy, and his harsh measures against Confederate sympathizers had not paid off. Even more, the public blamed Lincoln for starting a fruitless war in the first place and wasting countless American lives. The result of the war seemed to vindicate those who had advocated for letting the Southern states peacefully secede. The popularity of Lincoln and his party plummeted.
With the secession of the Southern states, slavery became a less pressing issue, although radical Republicans certainly still wished to abolish it. An amendment to outlaw slavery was proposed but narrowly failed to pass Congress in late 1864. Radicals instead turned their attention to passing legislation to outlaw slavery nationwide. Moderates in the party, led by Lincoln, came out against this effort. It was believed that it would now be easy for any of the remaining slave states in the Union to defect to the Confederacy, and thus it was important to avoid offending them. They justified their stance by saying that slavery would be soon to die out in these last vestiges anyway, but radicals were still outraged. The incident widened the internal divide in the party at a time when frustrations were high.
Some legislation guaranteeing civil rights was still passed. Republicans knew that they would likely sustain heavy losses in the 1866 midterms and so scrambled to pass any legislation they could while they still had congressional majorities. The divide between factions tanked several such efforts.
Democrats did indeed see a landslide victory in 1866, winning control of Congress and most state governments. They portrayed Republicans as corrupt urban elites, an industrialist faction trying to move away from the decentralized, agrarian, Jacksonian United States that most citizens had grown up in. On top of this, the public had simply completely lost faith in the Republicans as an institution. Their policies had seemed to lead to nothing but failure and death. They held overwhelming majorities in Congress during the war and yet still failed to accomplish their one founding goal of abolishing slavery. They seemed to be corrupt in every way.
Lincoln remained in office and vetoed Democratic attempts to reverse Republican legislation. In response, they impeached him in 1868, though they didn't have the senate majority required to remove him from office. The failures and unpopularity of Lincoln led to his moderate faction losing control of the party to the radicals, who believed that the only way for the party to survive was to leave compromise in the past and aggressively pursue their goals. They nominated Benjamin Wade for president in 1868. Wade lost a landslide victory to Democrat George H. Pendleton, and Republicans continued to lose races down the ticket.
Benjamin Wade
Pendleton worked with the Democratic congress to reverse most Republican policies, including higher tariffs and federal civil rights laws. Republicans failed to rebound in the 1870 elections. With no end to their bleak future in sight, even the party's most committed members began to lose faith in its viability. The Republican name was stained in blood and failure. Some proposed a rebranding, but others simply left the party altogether or retired from politics. The public became rather apolitical during this period, unwilling to continue pursuing idealistic goals. It seemed clear that a total break from the Republican legacy was needed in order to regain any legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Leaders began arranging for a new party that would not be tied to abolition or prewar issues as its primary platform. However, the two factions were unable to come to agreement on a unified platform, and so these efforts stalled.
Radicals kept their grip on party leadership, and so the moderates were the first to widely break with the party. Most radicals, seeing the folly of continuing on under the Republican label, followed them soon after. Those who remained politically active ran under independent labels or for local state parties.
What was left in the Republican Party was the highly committed old guard that refused to abandon the movement. They tried to rebuild as well as they could, contending that the party's image could still be rehabilitated in time. They organized a national convention for 1872. It was poorly attended and unenthusiastic. The delegates once again nominated Benjamin Wade for president and then went home. The party ceased operations entirely sometime in the months that followed, never officially doing any campaigning for Wade.
Former Republicans tried to forge new political parties for a new age. The radicals moved first, forming the American Party, followed by the moderates who formed the National Party. Both tried to present themselves as entirely unrelated to the old Republican Party, instead presenting a new vision for the country. The public became dissatisfied with Democrat rule after the Great Disgrace of 1876. The Republican successor parties gained momentum and eventually merged into the National American Party. Although they claimed no link to their legacy, it was clear to most that the National American Party wasn't much more than a rebranded Republican Party that took ten years to form. They were able to become competitive against the Democrats, winning the presidency in 1884.
Legacy[]
The Republican Party is nowadays seen as a curious experiment in American history as a major party based on one founding issue: the abolition of slavery. It did not accomplish much in terms of changing the nation over its 18 years of existence, and most historians deem it a failure for this reason. In fact, most experts think that the party may have been doomed to fail even if they had won the war, as they would have disbanded after their main goal of abolishing slavery was met. The National American Party never claimed much of the legacy of their predecessors, even though almost all of their members were former Republicans. It was only in the early 20th Century, after the scars of the war had faded, that the party started to officially acknowledge the obvious links. They portrayed the Republican Party as a well meaning but poorly organized force that paved the way for future advancements.
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