themselves in the modern democratic republics of Europe and America. It is a form of government not much more like the republic of antiquity and the middle ages than the French sans-culottes was like Harmodius and Aristogeiton, whom he admired for being what they most decidedly were not—believers in equality and fraternity. But it does, subject to the imperfections of human nature, set up a government in which all, theoretically at least, have a voice in what concerns all.
REPUBLICAN PARTY. Of the three important American
parties which have called themselves Republican) this article
deals only with that one which was organized during the years
1854 to 1856 and has been in control of the government of the
United States during the larger portion of the half century
since the presidential election of 1860
Origin and Character.-Sectionalism, the movement which tended to break the Union into two separate republics, one based on free labour, the other on that of slaves, had gained before the middle of the 19th century such headway as to compel a reconstruction of the party system. The beginning of this reconstruction was heralded by the rise of the Liberty party (q.v.), in 1840, its completion by the disruption-in 186O of the Democratic party along sectional lines, and the election of Abraham Lincoln by a sectional vote.
The event which determined the date of the birth of the Republican party was the repeal by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854 of that provision of the Compromise of 1820 which excluded slavery from national territory N. of the geographical ]ine° 30 and the formal substitution in that bill of “ squatter ” for national sovereignty, in deciding the question of slavery in the Territories. The enactment of this bill introduced a new and highly critical stage in the relations between North and South. Down to 1850 the differences of the two sections over slavery had always been arranged by mutual concessions. In 1854 this expedient was set aside. Without giving anything in return, Douglas and his supporters took from the free-labour section an invaluable barrier against the extension of slavery: and through the doctrine of “squatter sovereignty ” denied to Congress the power to erect such barriers in the future. But this only hastened a crisis that could not have been greatly delayed.. Calhoun had already discerned the true source and deadly nature of the growing sectional estrangement, and Lincoln was soon to utter the prophetic words: “ This government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.” The immediate result of the agitation over the repeal was to convince a large number-which soon became a majority of the best citizens of the North, irrespective of party, that the restriction of slavery was essential to the well-being both of the North and of the Union as a whole. In order to give effect to this conviction it was necessary to form a new party. The agitation which prepared the way for its rise began in Congress during the debates on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and spread thence throughout the North. The West was more quickly responsive than the East. But everywhere large elements of the existing parties came together and agreed to unite in resisting the extension of slavery. Before the discussion of the repeal in Congress had reached its later stages, a mass meeting of Whigs, Democrats and Free Soilers at Ripon, .Wisconsin, resolved that if the Kansas-Nebraska Bill should pass: “They would throw old party organizations to the winds and organize a new party on the sole issue of the non-extension of slavery.” The name Republican was formally adopted at a state convention of the new party held at Jackson, Michigan, on the 6th of July 1854, and by other Western state conventions on the 13th of the same month.
The great majority of the new party had been either Whigs or Democrats. In two cardinal points they were agreed, namely, opposition to slavery and belief in the national, as opposed to the federative, nature of the Union. In other points there was at the beginning much disagreement. For~ The party organized by Thomas Jefferson; the National Republicans, 1824-1834; and the Republican party of the present. tunately the issues on which there was agreement overshadowed all others long enough to bring about a fusing of the two elements. It was the union of the Whig who believed in making government strong and its sphere wide, with the Democrat who believed in the people and the people's control of government, that made the Republican party both efficient and popular. History.-Before its advent to power, from 1854 to 1860, the tasks of the Republican party were three: to propagate the doctrine of slavery restriction by Congressional action; to oppose the extension of slavery under the operation of the doctrine of squatter sovereignty; and to obtain control of the Federal government. In each it was successful. Throughout the North and under such leaders as Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Sumner, Henry Ward Beecher and Horace Greeley, all the resources of the press, the platform, the pulpit and (an institution then powerful but now forgotten) the lyceum or citizens debating club, were fully enlisted in the propaganda. Other events that turned to the advantage of the Republicans were the brutal assault upon Charles Sumner in the Senate Chamber in 18 56, the Ostend Manifesto, advising in the interest of slavery the acquisition of Cuba by force if Spain should refuse to sell, the enforcement-sometimes brutal and always hateful -of the Fugitive Slave Law (q.v.), and the quarrel of Douglas with the administration and the South over the application of squatter sovereignty to Kansas. On the other hand, the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott, which the Republicans refused to accept as good law, and the raid of John Brown at Harper's Ferry, which they condemned, brought them into serious embarrassment.
In the prosecution of the third task, the attainment of office, the party followed wise counsels and was fortunate. In its first national platform, that of 1856, the party affirmed its adherence to the principles of Washington and Jefferson, denied the constitutional right of Congress or a Territory to establish slavery, and declared that it was “ both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin' relics of barbarism, polygamy and slavery.” At the close of the resolutions there was a demand for government aid to a Pacific railway and for the improvement of rivers and harbours. The platform of 186O was more comprehensive. It added to the planks of the first, an arraignment of the administration and the Dred Scott decision, and demands for a protective tariff and a homestead act. Although the popular vote for Abraham Lincoln was more than a half-million greater than that for Iobn C. Fremont, the party's candidate in 1856, nevertheless it was the disruption of the Democratic party that made the Republican triumph possible. On the other hand, the Republican party was the strongest member of the new party system as reorganized on the sectional principle. Moreover, in character and purpose, as well as numerical strength, it was better qualified than its rivals to meet the impending crisis. The War Period, 1861-1865.-Between the election of Mr Lincoln in November 1860, and his inauguration on the following 4th of March, seven of the slave-holding states seceded, formed a Confederacy and withdrew their representatives from the national legislature. All attempts to arrange a compromise failed. The vacillation of President Buchanan, and the position taken in his annual message that the national government had no right to coerce a seceding state, gave strong support to the disunion movement. These events forced upon the Republican party a change of policy. Hitherto its efforts had been directed chiefly to excluding slavery from the Territories. Now the first duty was to save the Union from disruption. In order to do this it was necessary to unite the North, and to bring to the support of the Union a large proportion of those border slave states, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Missouri, in which there was considerable Union sentiment. Hence the party laid aside completely the earlier issue of slavery restriction and accepted as the sole issue of the hour the maintenance of the Union. Indeed, in order to secure more easily the co-operation of loyal Democrats, it even gave up its own name for a time and called itself the Union party.
