page_title: History of the Republican Party (United States)
section_title: Beginnings: 1854–1860
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Republican Party (United States) / Beginnings: 1854–1860
caption_attribution_description: English: "The Great Republican Reform Party Calling on their Candidate", an 1856 print which is a political cartoon about John C. Frémont, the first Republican party candidate for president of the United States. In the 1840's and 1850's, radical social reform movements (such as slavery abolitionism, alcohol prohibitionism, pacifism, socialism, and after 1848, feminism) and/or what were considered eccentric currents of thought (such as Transcendentalism, Mormonism, Oneida, "spirit-rappers" or Spiritualism, etc.) were sometimes stigmatized by being lumped together as "the Isms". Southerners often prided themselves on the American South being free from all of the pernicious Isms (except for alcohol temperance campaigning, which was fully compatible with traditional Protestant fundamentalism). For example, on Sept. 5th and 9th 1856, the Richmond, Virginia Examiner ran editorials on "Our Enemies, the Isms and their Purposes", while in 1858 "Parson" Brownlow" called for a "Missionary Society of the South, for the Conversion of the Freedom Shriekers, Spiritualists, Free-lovers, Fourierites, and Infidel Reformers of the North" (reference: The Freedom-of-thought Struggle in the Old South by Clement Eaton). And George Fitzhugh wrote "Why have you Bloomers and Women's Right's men, and strong-minded women, and Mormons, and anti-renters, and 'vote myself a farm' men, Millerites, and Spiritual Rappers, and Shakers, and Widow Wakemanites, and Agrarians, and Grahamites, and a thousand other superstitious and infidel Isms at the North? Why is there faith in nothing, speculation about everything?"[1] This cartoon seeks to stigmatize the Fremont campaign and the Republican party (which was the first broadly-successful political party in United States history to firmly and unyieldingly oppose all attempts at the geographical expansion of slavery) by associating them with the "Isms", most of which were politically very controversial (and some of which were considered to be offensively immoral by many) at the time. The advocates of the Isms are shown making demands on Fremont: Advanced Fourierist/Transcendentalist thinker "The first thing we want is a law making the use of Tobacco, Animal food [i.e. meat], and Lager-bier a Capital Crime --" Woman wearing an extremely masculinized version of the Bloomer costume (with straight pants instead of harem pants, and extremely short skirts over them), and also smoking (which was considered a masculine prerogative at the time) "We demand, first of all, the recognition of Woman as the equal of man, with a right to Vote and hold Office. --" Roughly-dressed character, holding liquor bottle "An equal division of property, that is what I go in for --" Ugly woman (from Oneida?) wearing a dress with poorly-constructed narrow hoops (at a time when fashionable belles wore very broad hoops, while women who declared their relative independence from ephemeral fashion trends didn't wear hoops at all) "Col., I wish to invite you to the next meeting of our Free Love association, where the shackles of marriage are not tolerated, &amp; perfect Freedom exists in love matters, and you will be sure to enjoy yourself, for we are all Freemounters. --" [this last word a double entendre] Catholic prelate "We look to you, Sir, to place the power of the Pope on a firm footing in this Country--" Black man in exaggerated faux-dandy attire (representing abolitionism) "De Poppylation ob Color comes in first -- arter dat [after that], you may do wot you pleases--" Fremont "You shall all have what you desire -- and be sure that the Glorious Principles of Popery, Fourierism, Free Love, Woman's Rights, the Maine law [alcohol prohibition], &amp; above all the Equality of our Colored Brethren shall be maintained if I get into the Presidential Chair". The cartoonist was motivated by political expedience in grouping Catholicism together with the more commonly-recognized "Isms" (which leads to a certain degree of internal inconsistency in the cartoon); it was the Democratic party which was more often accused of relying on the support of Catholic immigrants, whose presence some considered dangerous to the American political system. However, there was a political campaign smear rumor current in 1856 that Fremont was a Catholic (the purpose of which was to prevent Fremont from gaining support from those who were suspicious of Catholics). Edited from image http://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/cph/3a10000/3a12000/3a12700/3a12793u.tif on the Library of Congress website. Bibliographic information found on the LoC site: TITLE: The great Republican Reform Party, calling on their candidate CALL NUMBER: PGA - Currier &amp; Ives--Great republican... (B size) [P&amp;P] REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-10370 (b&amp;w film copy neg.) SUMMARY: Fremont is portrayed as the champion of a motley array of radicals and reformers. As he stands patiently at far right he is "called upon" by (left to right): a temperance advocate, a cigar-smoking, trousered suffragette, a ragged socialist holding a liquor bottle, a spinsterish libertarian, a Catholic priest holding a cross, and a free black dandy. Temperance man: "The first thing we want, is a law making the use of Tobacco, Animal food, and Lager-bier a Capital Crime". Suffragette: "We demand, first of all; the recognition of Woman as the equal of man with a right to Vote and hold Office". Socialist: "An equal division of Property that is what I go in for". Elderly libertarian: "Col. I wish to invite you to the next meeting of our Free Love association, where the shackles of marriage are not tolerated &amp; perfect freedom exist in love matters and you will be sure to Enjoy yourself, for we are all Freemounters". Priest: "We look to you Sir to place the power of the Pope on a firm footing in this Country". Freedman: "De Poppylation ob Color comes in first. arter dat, you may do wot you pleases". Fremont: "You shall all have what you desire. and be sure that the glorious Principles of Popery, Fourierism, Free Love, Woman's Rights, the Maine Law, &amp; above all the Equality of our Colored brethren, shall be maintained; If I get into the Presidential Chair". MEDIUM: 1 print on wove paper&#160;: lithograph&#160;; image 30 x 39 cm. CREATED/PUBLISHED: N.Y.&#160;: For Sale [by Nathaniel Currier] at no. 2 Spruce St., [1856] CREATOR: N. Currier (Firm) RELATED NAMES: Maurer, Louis, 1832-1932, artist. NOTES: Title from item. Probably drawn by Louis Maurer. The Gale catalog describes another, earlier state of the print, with only "ferences". Currier &amp; Ives&#160;: a catalogue raisonné‚ / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit, MI&#160;: Gale Research, c1983, no. 2867. Weitenkampf, p. 117. Murrell, p. 185. Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston&#160;: G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1856-22. TOPICS: Abolitionism and abolitionists and the Kansas Strife. African Americans (portrayed). Catholic Church, hostility toward. Temperance movement. Women and women's rights. FORMAT: Political cartoons 1850-1860. Lithographs 1850-1860. REPOSITORY: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA DIGITAL ID: (b&amp;w film copy neg.) cph 3a12793 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3a12793 CARD #: 2003656588
context_page_description: The Republican Party, also referred to as the "GOP", is one of the world's oldest extant political parties. It is the second-oldest existing political party in the United States; its chief rival, the Democratic Party, is the earliest.
  The Republican Party emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery into American territories. The early Republican Party consisted of northern evangelical Protestants, businessmen, professionals, factory workers, prosperous farmers and, former black slaves and some white Southerners, especially in mountain areas. It had few Catholic supporters. The GOP was pro-business, and it supported banks, the gold standard, railroads and, high tariffs. The party opposed the expansion of slavery before 1861 and led the fight to destroy the Confederate States of America. At its inception, the Republican Party had almost no presence in the Southern United States. In the Northern United States by 1858, it had enlisted former Whigs and former Free Soil Democrats to form majorities in nearly every Northern state.
context_section_description: The Republican Party grew out of opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce in 1854. The Act opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission as slave states, thus implicitly repealing the prohibition on slavery in territory north of 36° 30′ latitude that had been part of the Missouri Compromise. This change was viewed by anti-slavery Northerners as an aggressive, expansionist maneuver by the slave-owning South.  Opponents of the Act were intensely motivated and began forming a new party. The Party began as a coalition of anti-slavery Conscience Whigs such as Zachariah Chandler and Free Soil Democrats such as Salmon P. Chase.
  The first anti-Nebraska local meeting where "Republican" was suggested as a name for a new anti-slavery party was held in a Ripon, Wisconsin schoolhouse on March 20, 1854. The first statewide convention that formed a platform and nominated candidates under the Republican name was held near Jackson, Michigan, on July 6, 1854.  At that convention, the party opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories and selected a statewide slate of candidates.  The Midwest took the lead in forming state Republican Party tickets; apart from St. Louis and a few areas adjacent to free states, there were no efforts to organize the Party in the southern states.
  New England Yankees, who dominated that region and much of upstate New York and the upper Midwest, were the strongest supporters of the new party. This was especially true for the pietistic Congregationalists and Presbyterians among them and, during the war, many Methodists and Scandinavian Lutherans. The Quakers were a small, tight-knit group that was heavily Republican. By contrast, the liturgical churches (Roman Catholic, Episcopal and German Lutheran) largely rejected the moralism of the Republican Party; most of their adherents voted Democratic.
  
  The new Republican Party envisioned modernizing the United States, emphasizing expanded banking, more railroads and factories, and giving free western land to farmers ("free soil") as opposed to letting slave owners buy up the best properties. It vigorously argued that free market labor was superior to slavery and was the very foundation of civic virtue and true republicanism; this was the "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men" ideology. Without using the term "containment", the Republican Party in the mid-1850s proposed a system of containing slavery. Historian James Oakes explains the strategy: 
  The federal government would surround the south with free states, free territories, and free waters, building what they called a 'cordon of freedom' around slavery, hemming it in until the system's own internal weaknesses forced the slave states one by one to abandon slavery.
  The Republican Party launched its first national organizing convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 22, 1856. This gathering elected a governing National Executive Committee and passed resolutions calling for the repeal of laws enabling slaveholding in free territories and "resistance by Constitutional means of Slavery in any Territory," defense of anti-slavery individuals in Kansas who were coming under physical attack, and a call to "resist and overthrow the present National Administration" of Franklin Pierce, "as it is identified with the progress of the Slave power to national supremacy." Its first national nominating convention was held in June 1856 in Philadelphia. John C. Frémont ran as the first Republican nominee for President in 1856 behind the slogan "Free soil, free silver, free men, Frémont and victory!" Although Frémont's bid was unsuccessful, the party showed a strong base. It dominated in New England, New York and the northern Midwest and had a strong presence in the rest of the North. It had almost no support in the South, where it was roundly denounced in 1856–1860 as a divisive force that threatened civil war.
  The Republican Party absorbed many of the previous traditions of its members, who had come from an array of political factions, in
caption: This Democratic editorial cartoon links John C. Frémont to other radical movements including temperance, feminism, Fourierism, free love, Catholicism and abolition
exif: {}