The US Republican Party

The Republican Party

The US Republican Party

 

The Republican Party can be traced back to the 1850s when the antislavery movement opposed the extension of slavery into the Kansas and Nebraska territories by the proposed Kansas-Nebraska Act. The party was born out of the Whig Party as an effort to oppose Andrew Jackson and his failed attempt to manage the national crisis over slavery.

 

The Republicans won the presidency

 

By 1860, the majority of the Southern slave states were publicly threatening secession if the Republicans won the presidency. In November 1860, Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the Republican Party over a divided Democratic Party. Abraham Lincoln was a self-taught lawyer, legislator, and vocal opponent of slavery. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history.

 

Abraham Lincoln built an exceptionally strong cabinet composed of many of his political rivals, including Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Edwin M. Stanton. He proved to be a shrewd military strategist and a savvy leader:

 

  • His Emancipation Proclamation paved the way for slavery’s abolition
  • Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is one of the most famous speeches in American history
  • Lincoln’s assassination made him a martyr to the cause of liberty
  • Abraham Lincoln is one of the greatest presidents in U.S. history

 

The Civil War firmly identified the Republican Party as the party of the victorious North, and after the war, the Republican-dominated Congress forced a “Radical Reconstruction” policy on the South, which saw the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution and the granting of equal rights to all Southern citizens. And, during the 19th century, the republicans stood against the extension of slavery to the country’s new territories. Ultimately, for slavery’s complete abolition.

 

The acronym GOP, widely understood as the “Grand Old Party,” in the 1870s. The party’s official logo, the elephant, is derived from a cartoon by Thomas Nast and also dates from the 1870s, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its main, historic rival, the Democratic Party.