Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-13
The History of Presidential Elections
XIII-Birth of the Republican Party.
BY FREDERIC J. HASKIN.
Author of THE American Government"

The birth of the Republican party, in
1856, rising Phoenix-like out of the
ashes of the ruins of the defeated OPP
position to Democracy in 1852, stands
out as one of the remarkable political
events of American history. Four years
,, before the country had been almost
unanimous in favor of the adjustment
of the slavery question as made by the
compromise of 1850, but the Southern
Democrats, not content with that, pro-
ceeded to push their advantage further
under Pierce, and the Republican party
sprang, full-grown, into the arena of
politics as protest against such a
course. 1t remained for Pennsylvania
in race in which the Democracy won
by an eyelash finish, to cast the vote
which the only time in its history rut
one of its sons into the White House
and kept out of it man whose cleo
ton probably would have meant dis
union and civil war four years before
they came.
Many historians have specialized as
to what would have happened had
fusion won in Pennsylvania in 1856
and Fremont succeeded Pierce in the
White House. That secession would
have followed seems inevitable. And
what would Fremont have done in the
presidential chair if such an event had
come about? Many Northern author
ity has registered his VOW of thank
fulness that by the narrow majority of
1,025 votes Pennsylvania postponed I'M
til 1850 the pivotal election in Ameri-
can politics.
The Republican party met in Pitts
burgh on WaShingtonS birthday and
called national convention to con-
vene in Philadelphia on Bunker Hill
day. It met according to schedule, and
such small thing as credentials never
entered into the minds of the leaders
of the movement. They felt that every
body at the convention was sincerely
interested in the cause of anti-slayery,
so every delegate had seat.
Weed and Seward.
1t was indeed with them case of
principles and not men, and the thought
of most of the delegates turned to Will
liam H. Seward. Seward declined the
nomination, yet his declination was not
of his own wish Thurlow Weed had
forced him to it, and he frequently
limited to friends that Weed had be-
trayed him for Fremont Weed him.
self tells story which shows how
clearly Seward believed that If he could
have accepted the nomination in 1856
he would have been renominated in
1860, and he, instead of Lincoln, would
have been the Civil War President. The
story goes that Weed and Seward were
riding up Broadway one day, and when
they passed the Lincoln Monument In
Union Square Seward said:
Weed, If you had been faithful to
me, should have been there instead
of Lincoln"
To which Weed replied:
Is 1t not better to be alive and in
carriage with me than to be dead and
set up in bronze?"
Salmon P. Chase was considered for
the nomination, and Justice Mclean,
who had been on the Supreme Court
bench since 1929, also was talked CT.
Horace Greeley wrote of him:
I'VE do not consider him quite S. o.
G."
The IS. o. G." standing for a politi-
cal slang expression of the day, Sound
on the Goose
Charles A. Dana wrote to friend:
you ought to rejoice at the interest
of such candidate rather than shed
tears by the quart when he is done
for"
In the end John C. Fremont was
nominated. His political PRINCIPLES were
little better known than were those of
Zachary Taylor when the Wings nomi-
mated him in 1848. A boiling faction
OF the Know Nothing party had nomi-
mated Fremont some time before, and
the Republicans sought to add that
strength to their own. Lincoln was a
candidate before the convention for
Vice President and received 10 votes
on one ballot, but w. l. Dayton of New
Jersey was nominated over him. Lin
coin favored the nomination of Justice
Mclean and urged e. B. WaShburne
and other friends to do. all they could
in behalf Of the eminent jurist.
Know Nothings Meet.
The Know Nothings, of whom Horace
Greeley wrote that they had as a party
about as many of the elements of per-
manence as an anti-potato-rot party,
held their national convention on Wash
ington's birthday anniversary, their ma
tional council having three days before
drawn up the party platform. A split
was precipitated by Fremont's friends
over the right of the council to take
away from the convention the framing
of the platform. The regulars nomi-
mated ex-President Fillmore and SAM
uel j. Donelson. The Wings afterward
met and ratified the nominations, the
last convention they ever held. Thus
they, organized into a political party
by anti-Masonry. expired as an adjunct
of ti-Catholicism.
The Democrats met in Cincinnati,
holding there the first national con-
vention which ever met west Of the
Alleghenies. Although President Pierce
was a candidate for denomination, it
was early seen that the party course
was to be determined from the fact
that the nominee would have to carry
some Northern States to win, and Pierce
was unpopular in the North. So Blu
chanan got the nomination. with John
c. Breckenridge as his running mate.
Slavery Campaign Issue.
"Free soil, free Kansas, free speech
and Fremont" was the battle cry of the
Republicans. while Buck and Brock"
was as much as the Democratic cam
paign poets could find for a slogan.
The Republicans could find no term