CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE I. Formative Causes …………………………………… 5 II. Ancient and Modern Slavery ………………………….. 11 III. Beginning of Slavery in the United States …………….. 22 IV. The Early Federal Government ………………………… 28 V. The Missouri Compromise …………………………….. 42 VI. The Abolitionists ………………………………….. 51 VII. Compromise of 1850 …………………………………. 59 VIII. Birth of the Republican Party ……………………….. 70 IX. First Republican National Convention …………………. 86 X. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates …………………………. 101 XI. Lincoln …………………………………………… 112 XII. Reconstruction and the National Debt …………………. 135 XIII. Grant …………………………………………….. 148 XIV. Hayes …………………………………………….. 170 XV. Garfield and Arthur ………………………………… 185 XVI. Blaine ……………………………………………. 201 XVII. Harrison ………………………………………….. 213 XVIII. Cleveland's Second Term …………………………….. 230 XIX. McKinley ………………………………………….. 244 XX. Roosevelt …………………………………………. 285
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE 1. Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley …………………. Frontispiece 2. White House ……………………………………. facing 28 3. Capitol ……………………………………….. " 44 4. Alvan E. Bovay …………………………………. " 76 5. Schoolhouse at Ripon, Wis ……………………….. " 84 6. John C. Fremont ………………………………… " 92 7. Wm. H. Seward ………………………………….. " 100 8. Lincoln's First Inauguration …………………….. " 124 9. New York Herald, April 15, 1865 ………………… " 132 10. Andrew Johnson …………………………………. " 140 11. Ulysses S. Grant ……………………………….. " 148 12. Rutherford B. Hayes …………………………….. " 180 13. Chester A. Arthur ………………………………. " 196 14. James G. Blaine ………………………………… " 204 15. Benjamin Harrison ………………………………. " 213 16. John Sherman …………………………………… " 220 17. Inauguration of Wm. McKinley, March, 1897, ………… " 244 18. Thos. B. Reed ………………………………….. " 252 19. Second Inauguration of McKinley ………………….. " 260 20. Marcus A. Hanna ………………………………… " 276 21. Theodore Roosevelt ……………………………… " 285
A HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
CHAPTER I.
FORMATIVE CAUSES.
"Resolved, That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign power over the territories of the United States for their government, and that in the exercise of this power it is both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery."
Republican National Platform, 1856.
Near the beginning of Mr. Conway's small volume entitled "Barons of the Potomack and Rappahannock" occurs the sententious remark that "a true history of tobacco would be the history of English and American Liberty." With whatever truth there is in such sweeping statements it may also be said that "a history of Slavery in this country would be the history of the Republican Party." This is distinctly so, at least to the close of the Civil War, for we are to notice that while the party originated in a desire to oppose the extension of slavery, the cause of its origin disappeared in less than ten years after the birth of the organization. But the results of that cause remained for many years, and justified the assertion in the Republican platform of 1860 that "a history of the nation during the last four years has fully established the propriety and necessity of the organization and perpetuation of the Republican Party, and that the causes which called it into existence are permanent in their nature." From its primary position as an opponent of slavery extension, the new party became the champion of abolition, and in the chaos brought on by the Civil War, and in the Reconstruction period which followed, it was kept in power, notwithstanding the disappearance of its direct formative cause, and the justification for its continued existence was found in the urgent necessity of the hour. Gradually but firmly it became a strong State and National Party, solving the many vexed problems which followed the great conflict, restoring public credit, reducing the enormous war debt; and when the slavery question and its direct consequences had been eliminated from national politics, taking up new political ideas and economic policies, for the welfare of the entire country, until now, after half a century of existence, during which time it has written some of the brightest pages of American history, the Republican Party stands out as one of the greatest and most consistent of political parties in all the world's history.