OCR Text |
Show ntlllltflMMI(HltnillIIUHMHtmfUnMIMM pf?mtmnmii!!?t'.:::" " I..:.. Hhw'tmwmmtwfl LITTLE BAND-WAGON JOURNEYS vMmmmU by l t. MERRiiiUi!!ullllllll'1,'!S,n , 1KM, WMtcra N wapaMr t'aUa.) . The First Republican Campaign uCTtEE speech, free soil and Fre-r Fre-r mont I- With this catchy bat-tlecry bat-tlecry the new-born Republican party In 1856 pitched with seal into Its first national campaign, which for enthusiasm enthusi-asm and excitement was to surpass any Presidential canvass the 'nation bad seen since the picturesque "log cabin and hard cider" contest that took place in 1840. The campaign for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" bad been waged by the Whigs In a spirit of hilarious jollity. But while the Republicans of 1850 sang, hurrahed end paraded with equal gusto, there was an overtone of deep gravity in the political developments de-velopments of that summer and autumn. au-tumn. The Issue of slavery extension or freedom lent an unusual moral fervor to the contest In the West there were but two parties, the Democratic and the Republican. Re-publican. In the Eas the skeletons of the Whig and Know-Nothing partlea still rattled. The main battle soon was seen to be between the Democrats, Dem-ocrats, whose nominee was James Buchanan, and the newly batched Republicans Re-publicans with their appealing western west-ern hero, General Fremont who had planted the Stars and Stripes on the highest peuk of the Rocky mountains Birth of the Republican Party HENRY CLAY succeeded in lulling a large portion of the public Into a false sense of the dnallty of bis compromise com-promise of 1850 as permanent settlement set-tlement for the slavery question. Clay went to his grave thinking be bad saved the Onion. But the "Irrepressible "Irrepres-sible con 11c t" merely bad been postponed. post-poned. Senator Stephen A. Douglas reopened re-opened the slavery Issue In the territories ter-ritories only four years after Clay thought be had laid It with the Douglas Doug-las Kansas-Nebraska bill, by which be proposed admission to the Union of those two states, slave or free, according accord-ing to the d Klsion of tbe citizens living liv-ing In them. In the North, passage of this bill made Douglas the currently most hated man In America. He was hissed off the platform In Chicago when, In his own state, be tried to explain bis position. In various places he was banged In efflgy for "treason." The Immediate political effect of tbe Kansas-Nebraska bill was to smash the Whig party wide open along sectional sec-tional lines. A coalition of northern Democrats and members of the shortlived short-lived Free Soli party began at once to set In. Credit for being the original initiator initi-ator as well as provider of the name for tbe new Republican party belongs to MaJ. A! van E. Bovuy, a Whig lawyer law-yer in the town of Rlpon, Wis. Visiting New York In 1852, be bad suggested to Horace Greeley that formation for-mation of a new party opposed to extension ex-tension of slavery In the territories was Inevitable, and be proposed the name Republican for It When the Kansas-Nebraska bill was in congress, Bovay put bis plan into execution in his home town. With Jehdlab Bow-en Bow-en and Amos Loper, Bovay summoned sum-moned a meeting In the Rlpon Congregational Congre-gational church, March 1, 1S54, which passed resolutions declaring Hint In event of enactment of the Kansas-Nebraska bill the old parties must ne discarded and a newy one be formed, on the bads of opposition to slavery. A few days later the senate passed the bill. The Rlpon leaders promptly called another meeting for March 20. 1854, at which 64 voters, out of the scarcely more than 100 In the town met and became the first members of the Republican purty In America. The little schoolhouse wherein this meeting was held still stands In a corner of the Ripon college campus, carefully preserved as the birthplace of the party. and with whom they hoped to plant their standard victoriously on the White House. Ex-President Millard Fillmore, as nominee of the Whigs and Know-Nothings, was destined to be a mere "also-ran." The paramount Issue for the Republicans Re-publicans was In truth as well as figuratively fig-uratively a burning and bleeding one. In Kansas and Missouri the guerilla warfare between slavery and anti-slavery anti-slavery forces struggling for dominance domi-nance under the Douglas scheme of "squatter sovereignty" was raging, with murders and plundering on both sides. Republicans pointed with horror hor-ror to "Meeding Kansas." Southern Democrats protested tiu.t their Republican opponents were trying try-ing to elect their ticket by "shrieks for freedom." The abolitionists had aroused genuine apprehension In tbe slave states. Representative southern statesmen and newspapers uttered the threat, which they were grimly to carry car-ry out five years later, that Republican Repub-lican victory would be followed by southern secession. Real fears that Fremont's election would mean the end of the Union caused thousands In the North to vote for Buchanan, who was pledged not to stir ut the slavery question. But the Republicans, deriding southern south-ern secession threats as political "bluff," swung wltb keener enthusiasm Into their long torchlight parades led by pioneers bearing gleaming axes reminiscent of Fremont's exploits as a westt-rn "pathfinder." or lustily Joined Rocky Mountain glee clubs In singing Fremont campaign songs, or listened In soberer mood In great mass meetings to exhortations hy pun Hclslts. preachers and poets. : Clergymen, professors and literary men. especially those In New England, the abolitionist stronghold, furnished to a marked degree the tepnbllcun leadership. The moral aspects of the slavery question made a strong appeal to them. Bryant and Emerson entered actively Into the campaign Longfellow Long-fellow canceled a trlj to Europe In order to be In America to vote Whit tier begged votes for Fremont In pus slonnte verse. Harriet Reecher Sfowe who previously had stirred up so much abolitionist sentiment with her famous "Uncle Tom's Cohln." published an other anti-slavery novel. Southerners, convinced that the In stltutlon of slavery was a beneficent one, were wounded h.v thp bitterness of these northern leaders denouncing their system, and felt that the North was displaying fanatical hatred when northern preachers thundered antl slavery sermons from their pulpits and uttered public prayers for Hu chsnan's defeat. Southern fears of "P.luck Republican" Repub-lican" victory, while not wholly Idle, proved to be premature. The election went against the Republicans. P.ul the popular vote of 1,341. 2f4 for Fre mont as against 1 .838. 1 00 for Buchan an was a surprising demonstration of strength by a new third party In Its first national election. It gave promise prom-ise of future success and Inspired heightened apprehension among Its opponents. Three and a half months later a state convention met at Jackson, Mich., for the similar purpose of fusing fus-ing old parties in a new ant slavery group. Too large for the biggest hall in town, the gathering adjourned to on oak grove nearby, where It adopted a ringing platform against slavery ex tenslou, urged the calling of a national nation-al convention, and as bad been Bug gested at Ripon, selected Republican as the name of the new purty. The name was proposed to leaders In tbe Michigan convention by Horace Greeley, Gree-ley, who had received the suggestion two years earlier from Bovay. The appellation Republican, was reminiscent of the earliest name applied ap-plied to the party of Jefferson the Republicans, or Democratic Republicans, Republic-ans, who bad shortened their party designation to Democrats under the Jackson regime. It also was recalled that Jefferson, though a slave-bolder himself, bad laid down the policy of slavery restriction for the old Northwest North-west territory region north of the Ohio river. Southern Democrats were not a little lit-tle irked that the Republicans should claim to be reviving the Ideas of Jefferson Jef-ferson and also should revive the first name by which Jefferson's followers had been known. They tried to dis credit the new party by referring to Its members as "Black Republicans." Once begun, the Republican movement move-ment was spread rapidly by local mass meetings and state conventions. Within With-in a year of the passage of the Kan ras-Nebraska bill, the party had sent eleven senators to Washington and bad majorities In fifteen northern states. It was ready to give battle on a national front in the Preslden tial election of 1856. The date of the national nominating nominat-ing convention was timed for the anniversary an-niversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1830, and Philadelphia, the cruuie-cuy or American freedom, was chosen as the meeting place. Every free state, also Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky, were repre-' sented In the convention by men who came stirred on the moral Iss-ue of the day with a strong crusading spirit The picturesque figure of the California Cali-fornia explorer and adventurer. Col. John C Fremont, loomed above all others, oth-ers, Including statesmen of more sea- son ing, as the most available nomjnee for President, and be was selected on the first ballot. The sun of Abraham Lincoln, who was to be tbe successful standard-bearer standard-bearer of the party only four years later, had but faintly risen above the national horizon. Put in nomination for Vice President he was eclipsed by Senator William L. Dayton of New Jersey by a vote of 759 to 110. |