Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1920-05-25
FIRST RECORDED
c. {. I. MEET
HELD At RIPON
RepubIiCa Organization
Launched At Wisconsin
Town 66 Years Ago, Ac-
Cordlng to An Authority.

10y MORNING JOURNAL SPECIAL LEASED wIsH,
Chicago, May 24-In assembling
at Chicago in June the republican
national convention will be sitting
IN the section where the republi-
can party was first named and
"lthln 2OO miles of where the first
recorded republican meeting was
held siXty-slX years ago. The ap-
pfoach of the convention recalls
TINS early history, though with the
passing of the years and the devel-
opment of new issues the first steps
oil the party have passed from COM
mon view,
1t will probably not be possible
10 trace to the earliest date the
first positive meeting which led TO
the formation of the new party"
writes Francis curtis in his history
of the republican party. 1T is
qulte likely there was no consider
able gathering of men, nor discus
sion or plans and policies, until Mr..
A. +. Bovay, whig of Ripon,
WIS together with a Mr.. Bowen,
democrat, and a Mr.. Baker, a free
soiler, issued a call for a public
ing situation"
The great issue of the war was
the extension of slavery. OF the
political situation prefacing the
formation of the republican party,
Mr.. Curtis says, mo political party
was able to elect enough members
of congress to override the united
will of the Shareholders, and until
the anti-slavery sentiment of the
north should be so welded togeth-
.er, and its opponents should be
so united in one party as to be able
to send to Washington enough men
to outvote the representatives of
the slave power. there was no
hope that its advance could be
checked"
Reference was made to the Ri
pom meeting by Henry Wilson,
when vice president of the United
State :, in his book, Rise and Fall
of the Slave Power" published in
1874. One of the earliest, if not
the earliest, of the movements"
he said, that contemplated defi-
mite action and the formation of
a new party was made in RipOn,
Fond du Lac county, Wis, in the
early months of 1854, in conse
quence of a very thorough can
vass, conference, and general COM
parison of views inaugurated by A.
e. Bovay, a prominent member
of the whig party, among the
wings, free sellers, and democrat
of that town. A call was issued for
q public meeting to consider the
grave issues which We're assuming
an aspect of such alarming pro-
portions"
The meeting thus called, wrote
Charles M. Harvey in the Chautau-
uuan, September, 1897, was held
in the Congregational church at Ri
pon, February %, 1854 A resolu-
ton was adopted In the meeting
that if the bill then pending in the
senate to throw open to slavery the
territories of Kansas and Nebras-
lsa should pass, the old party Or
ganization in Ripon should be cast
off, and a new parry, to be called
the republican, formed on the sole
issue of opposition to slavery ex-
tension.
"The bill passed the senate in
which body it originated, on
March 3, 1854, and on March 20,
the second meeting, participated
in by men of all parties. was held,
this time in a school house, at
which Bovay was the leading spirit.
by a vote of the assemblage, the [
town committees of the WING anal
free soil parties were dissolved
and a committee of five, three /