The Anti-Nebraska men of Massachusetts met in convention on July 19 of the same year, and organized the Republican party in that State by adopting the following resolution:
Resolved, That in co-operation with the friends of Freedom in sister States, we hereby form the Republican party of Massachusetts.
But the Republicans did not carry Massachusetts that year, the Anti-Nebraska vote being cast almost solidly for the successful Know-Nothing ticket. In Vermont, on July 13, 1854, a mass convention was held of persons "in favor of resisting, by all constitutional means, the usurpations of the propagandists of slavery." Among the resolutions there adopted was one which closed with these words: "We propose and respectfully recommend to the friends of Freedom in other States to co-operate and be known as Republicans." A State ticket was nominated, but, the State committees of the various parties being empowered "to fill vacancies," a fusion ticket was afterward placed in the field, voted for and elected under the name of Fusion. On the same day a convention was held in Columbus, O., which organized a canvass which swept that State at the fall elections; during this campaign most of the Anti-Nebraska candidates called themselves Republicans, and the party formally adopted that name at the State convention in 1855 which nominated Salmon P. Chase for Governor. It will be seen that the Jackson convention preceded all these kindred gatherings. To this statement may be profitably added the testimony of Henry Wilson, who, after thoroughly investigating the whole subject of the origin of Republicanism, wrote:[6]
But whatever suggestions others may have made, or whatever action may have been taken elsewhere, to Michigan belongs the honor of being the first State to form and christen the Republican party. More than three months before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill the Free Soil convention had adopted a mixed ticket, made up of Free-Soilers and Whigs, in order that there might be a combination of the anti-slavery elements of the State. Immediately on the passage of the Nebraska bill, Joseph Warren, editor of the Detroit Tribune, entered upon a course of measures that resulted in bringing the Whig and Free Soil parties together, not by a mere coalition of the two, but by a fusion of the elements of which the two were composed. In his own language, he "took ground in favor of disbanding the Whig and Free Soil parties and of the organization of a new party, composed of all the opponents of slavery extension." Among the first steps taken toward the accomplishment of this vitally important object was the withdrawal of the Free Soil ticket. This having been effected, a call for a mass convention was issued signed by more than 10,000 names. The convention met on the 6th day of July, and was largely attended.
A platform drawn by the Hon. Jacob M. Howard, afterward United States Senator from Michigan, was adopted, not only opposing the extension of slavery, but declaring in favor of its abolition in the District of Columbia. The report also proposed the name of "Republican" for the new party, which was adopted by the convention. Kinsley S. Bingham was nominated for Governor, and was triumphantly elected; and Michigan, thus early to enter the ranks of the Republican party, has remained steadfast to its then publicly-avowed principles and faith.
It is true that the Michigan convention of July 6, 1854, was only one development of a vast national agitation. The forces that gave it being were at work throughout the continent. Like movements were on foot in every Northern State. Kindred bodies met in the same month to take the same action. But to the men who gathered on that mid-summer day in the oak grove at Jackson belongs the honor of being the first to comprehend a great opportunity; they were wise enough to improve all its possibilities, and there founded and named the party of the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Israel Washburn in an address at Bangor, Me.
[5] The Senator from Virginia has stated that the Republican party originated in New England, from Know Nothingism. It is not true, sir; it had no such origin; it originated in no such place and from no such source. The Republican party was born in Michigan, on the sixth day of July, 1854. It had no origin from Know Nothingism or any other thing, except the outrageous, the infamous repeal of the time-honored Missouri compromise by the Congress of that year. It was christened the Republican party at its birth. It is perfectly evident the Senator from Virginia knows nothing at all about the Republican party, its origin, its ends, or its aims. He does not know anything about its birth or its principles. I merely wish to correct the misapprehension on his part that it was born in New England or anywhere else out of the State of Michigan. There is where it was born, sir; and we glory in the production of such a child.—Mr. Chandler in the Senate, December 14, 1859, in reply to Senator Mason, of Virginia.
[6] Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America," volume 2, page 412.