THE FORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
The darkest hour for the anti-slavery cause preceded the dawn of 1854.
The compromises of 1850 had closed that long series of so-called
bargains, by which the South had forced surrender after surrender
from the North in the vain hope of preserving by such artificial
devices its traditional preponderance in the government, so constantly
threatened by the rapid development of the free States and the
marvelous settlement of free territory. Behind the Louisiana purchase
from Bonaparte was slavery's demand for new States to reinforce
its political strength. Florida was bought from Spain for the same
reasons. The Missouri compromise of 1820 involved the admission of a
new slave State to the Union, and the organization of Arkansas as a
slave territory; it was the work of the advocates of slavery extension,
and was practically a surrender of free territory to bondage, the
only consideration being the exclusion of slavery from soil on which
(judging from all the experience of American settlement up to that
time) it could not be established nor maintained. The annexation of
Texas had been forced to add to the Union an enormous expanse of slave
territory, capable, it was hoped, of early division into several slave
States. The Mexican War was a peculiarly Southern scheme, having as
its real aim the conquest of an empire which was to include human
bondage among its established institutions. The futile plans for
the annexation of Cuba came from the same prolific source, and were
inspired by the same need of forcing the expansion of the political
power of the slave South to prevent its being outstripped by the
magnificent growth of the free North. But the forces of nature prove
more potent than human devices, and the last speech of John C. Calhoun
(read for him in the Senate on March 4, 1850,) showed how clearly this
fact had impressed itself on the ablest and acutest of the Southern
statesmen. That farewell address sketched minutely the history and
condition of the steadily-growing disparity between the North and the
South, declared in effect that the South with its institutions could
not permit Northern ascendancy, demanded from the North constitutional
amendments "which would restore to the South in substance the power
she possessed of protecting herself before the equilibrium between the
sections was destroyed," added that on no other basis could the South
safely remain in the Union, and said that, if this demand was refused,
"we would be blind not to perceive that your real objects are power and
aggrandizement, and infatuated not to act accordingly." To this candid
avowal of the Southern programme (ten years later it became evident
that Mr. Calhoun had stated then the slave power's ultimatum) the
answer was the final surrender of 1850. The compromise measures of that
year pledged the United States to the subdivision of Texas into new
(slave) States, organized Utah and New Mexico without any prohibition
of slavery within their boundaries, forbade the abolition of slavery in
the District of Columbia, and set the odious machinery of the Fugitive
Slave law in operation throughout the North. The consideration Freedom
received for these concessions was the admission of California to the
Union (it was evident that nothing but invasion and conquest could ever
make it a slave State) and the abolition of the slave trade in the
District of Columbia, amounting to a removal of the auction blocks of
slave dealers from the shadow of the Capitol to the narrow streets of
decaying Alexandria.
The opiate of compromise sufficed to keep still dormant the conscience
of the North, and the national acquiescence in this adjustment was
emphatic. The Whig and the Democratic parties in 1852 both formally
accepted in their platforms the legislation of 1850 as a decisive
and just settlement of the slavery question, and they polled almost
3,000,000 votes, while for the Free Soil ticket, representing hostility
to slavery extension and to pro-slavery compromises, but 155,000
votes were cast. The victory of the Democrats, who embodied in much
the fullest degree the spirit of concession to Southern demands,
was an overwhelming one. They carried 27 out of the 31 States, and
had 254 electoral votes out of 296, with a clear popular majority
over the entire opposition. In the Senate they had 14 majority out
of a membership of 62, and in the House a majority of 84 in a total
membership of 234. The condition of public sentiment then is thus
described by the most accurate and graphic historian of that era:
Whatever theoretic or practical objections may be justly made to
the compromise of 1850, there can be no doubt that it was accepted
and ratified by a great majority of the American people, whether
in the North or in the South. They were intent on business--then
remarkably prosperous--on planting, building, trading and getting
gain--and they hailed with general joy the announcement that all
the differences between the diverse "sections" had been adjusted
and settled. The terms of settlement were, to that majority, of
quite subordinate consequence; they wanted peace and prosperity,
and were no wise inclined to cut each other's throats and burn each
other's houses in a quarrel concerning (as they regarded it) only
the _status_ of negroes. The compromise had taken no money from
their pockets; it had imposed upon them no pecuniary burdens; it
had exposed them to no personal and palpable dangers; it had rather
repelled the gaunt spectre of civil war and disunion (habitually
conjured up when slavery had a point to carry), and increased
the facilities for making money, while opening a boundless vista
of national greatness, security and internal harmony. Especially
by the trading class, and the great majority of the dwellers in
seaboard cities, was this view cherished with intense, intolerant
vehemence.... Whatever else the election of 1852 might have meant,
there was no doubt that the popular verdict was against "slavery
agitation" and in favor of maintaining the compromises of 1850....
The finances were healthy and the public credit unimpaired.
Industry and trade were signally prosperous. The tariff had ceased
to be a theme of partisan or sectional strife. The immense yield of
gold in California during the four preceding years had stimulated
enterprise and quickened the energies of labor, and its volume as
yet showed no signs of diminution. And though the Fugitive Slave
law was still denounced, and occasionally resisted by abolitionists
in the free States, while disunionists still plotted in secret and
more openly prepared in Southern commercial conventions (having for
their ostensible object the establishment of a general exchange
of the great Southern staples directly from their own harbors
with the principal European marts, instead of circuitously by way
of New York and other Northern Atlantic ports) there was still a
goodly majority in the South, with a still larger in the North and
Northwest, in favor of maintaining the Union and preserving the
greatest practical measure of cordiality and fraternity between the
free and slave States, substantially on the basis of the compromise
of 1850.
This was the blackest chapter in the history of the agitation for
Freedom on this continent. The era seemed to have been at last reached
of national surrender to slavery's demands, and of the purchase
of peace by the abandonment of (with the promise never to resume)
resistance to "the sum of all villainies." John Quincy Adams had said
that up to his day "the preservation, propagation, and perpetuation
of slavery" had ever been "the animating spirit" of the American
government. Daniel Webster had bitterly declared in 1848 that there was
no North in American politics, and that the South absolutely controlled
the government. Certainly, in 1853, the surface of the political
situation fully justified the indignant words of Gerrit Smith: "Were
this government despotic and her religion heathen, there might be some
hope of republicanizing her politics and Christianizing her religion;
but now that she has turned into darkness the greatest of all political
lights and the greatest of all religious lights, what hope is left for
her?"
It was at this juncture, when its triumph appeared to be complete, that
slavery fatally overreached itself. The Missouri compromise of 1820,
which _forever_ prohibited slavery in all of the original Louisiana
territory north of 36 degrees, 30 minutes of north latitude, had
remained unquestioned upon the statute books for a generation. The
South had received the full benefits of its share of that bargain,
which added Arkansas and Missouri to the ranks of the slave States. In
the interminable discussions of 1850 there had been no suggestion that
the compromise measures of that year were intended to either disturb
or supersede the Missouri compact, and the first message of Franklin
Pierce congratulated the country on the sense of repose and security
in the public mind which the compromise measures had restored, and
added the pledge, "this repose is to suffer no shock during my official
term, if I have power to avert it." Before two months had elapsed,
the North heard with astonishment and indignation the doctrine laid
down in Congress by the representatives of the slave power that the
Missouri compromise had been abrogated by the measures of 1850, and
that the vast domain between the Missouri and the Rocky Mountains, rich
in all material and political possibilities, was open to slaveholding
settlement. A few days more passed, and it was discovered that this
claim was receiving the powerful support of the administration, and
that it would also be championed by Stephen A. Douglas, with his
formidable energy, personal influence, and rare skill in debate, as a
step towards the vindication of his dogma of "Popular Sovereignty." Of
the memorable four months' struggle over this issue, the following is a
sketch in outline:
Soon after the Thirty-third Congress assembled, in December, 1853,
Senator A. C. Dodge, of Iowa, introduced a bill to organize the
Territory of Nebraska out of the magnificent region between Missouri
and Iowa and the Rocky Mountains. It was referred to the Committee on
Territories, and was reported back by Senator Douglas with amendments,
none of which, however, proposed to repeal the prohibition of slavery
included in the Missouri compromise. Upon this, Senator Archibald
Dixon, of Kentucky, a Whig who declared that on the question of slavery
he knew no Whiggery and no Democracy, but was a pro-slavery man,
gave notice that he should offer an amendment, providing that the
act of 1820 should not be so construed as to apply to the territory
contemplated by this act, nor to any other territory of the United
States. Senator Douglas thereupon had the bill recommitted, and
subsequently reported in an entirely different form, creating _two_
territories, Kansas and Nebraska, instead of one, and including the
provision that all questions pertaining to slavery in the territories
and in the new States to be formed therefrom should be left to the
action of the people thereof through their appropriate representatives,
and that the provisions of the constitution and laws of the United
States in respect to fugitives from service should be carried into
faithful execution in all the organized territories the same as in the
States. This was, equally with Senator Dixon's proposition, a direct
violation of the provision of the Missouri compromise, which was in
these words (Section 8): "That in all that territory ceded by France
to the United States under the name of Louisiana, which lies north of
36 degrees and 30 minutes of north latitude, not included within the
limits of the State contemplated by this act, slavery and involuntary
servitude, otherwise than as the punishment of crime, shall be and is
hereby forever prohibited." In the last report, however, the pill was
sugar-coated with Mr. Douglas's catch-word of "Popular Sovereignty."
The territory which the Kansas-Nebraska bill was intended to organize
was included in this quoted prohibition. That bill as introduced, in
the section that provided for the election of a delegate to Congress
from Kansas, had the stipulation:
That the constitution and all laws of the United States, which are
not locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect
within said territory as elsewhere in the United States.
To this the amended bill added the following reservation:
Except the section of the act preparatory to the admission of
Missouri into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, which was
superseded by the principles of the legislation of 1850, commonly
called the compromise measure, and is declared inoperative.
A similar provision with a like reservation was added to the section
providing for the election of a delegate from Nebraska. A prolonged and
brilliant debate followed in the Senate, and finally in place of the
original reservation the following was adopted, on motion of Senator
Stephen A. Douglas, by a vote of 35 to 10:
Except the section of the act preparatory to the admission of
Missouri into the Union, approved March 6, 1820, which, being
inconsistent with the principle of non-intervention by Congress
with slavery in the States and territories, as recognized by the
legislation in 1850 (commonly called the compromise measure), is
hereby declared inoperative and void, it being the true intent and
meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or
State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof
perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions
in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United
States.
Senator Chase then moved to add to the above the following:
Under which the people of the territory, through their appropriate
representatives, may, if they see fit, prohibit the existence of
slavery therein.
This amendment was voted down, yeas 10, nays 36, the Senate thus
declaring its understanding that the people of the new territories
should _not_ be allowed to prohibit slavery previous to their admission
as a State. The bill passed on the morning of March 4th, by a vote
of 37 to 14. In the House a separate bill had been introduced, but
when it came up for consideration the Senate bill was substituted for
it--by a parliamentary trick its opponents were prevented from offering
amendments--and the bill was passed, yeas 113, nays 100. It went back
to the Senate, in form as an original measure, but in effect the Senate
bill, and on May 26 was finally passed by that body and was approved by
President Pierce on May 30. The debate had been a memorable one; for
the friends of Liberty, while they resisted to the last the surrender
of what had been once bought for Freedom, joyfully recognized the fact
that this act would in its logic make every compromise repealable,
and thus kill in the womb all future political bargainings. Benjamin
F. Wade said in the Senate that "the violation of the plighted
faith of the nation would precipitate a conflict between liberty and
slavery; and that, in such a conflict, it will not be liberty that
will die in the nineteenth century. You may call me an Abolitionist
if you will; I care little for that, for if an undying hatred to
slavery constitutes an Abolitionist, I am that Abolitionist. If man's
determination at all times and at all hazards, to the last extremity,
to resist the extension of slavery, or any other tyranny, constitutes
an Abolitionist, I before God believe myself to be that Abolitionist."
William H. Seward said: "You are setting an example which abrogates all
compromises.... It has been no proposition of mine to abrogate them
now; but the proposition has come from another quarter--from an adverse
one. It is about to prevail. The shifting sands of compromise are
passing from under my feet, and they are now, without agency of my own,
taking hold again on the rock of the constitution. It shall be no fault
of mine if they do not remain firm." Charles Sumner closed his protest
against this removal of "the landmarks of freedom" by declaring the
measure to be "at once the worst and best bill on which Congress ever
acted--the worst inasmuch as it is a present victory for slavery, and
the best bill because it prepares the way for the 'All hail hereafter,'
when slavery must disappear. Sorrowfully I bend before the wrong you
are about to perpetrate. Joyfully I welcome all the promises of the
future."
The response of the North to the abrogation of the Missouri compromise
justified these predictions. To this overthrow of a solemn compact
for the purpose of opening a vast empire to attempts at slave
colonization, men of every shade of anti-slavery conviction made
answer by eagerly seeking ways of uniting in effective resistance to
such a crime against civilization. Amid an excitement, which grew
profounder as the contest progressed, and which was fed by the press,
the pulpit, and the lyceum, and was organized by public meetings,
the demand became daily stronger for political action on the basis of
uncompromising hostility to the aggressions of the slave power. Before
the Kansas-Nebraska controversy was finished the Whig party had ceased
to exist, the Democracy had become a pro-slavery organization, the era
of compromise had passed away, and the young giant of Republicanism
stood on the threshold of the territories commanding slavery to stand
back. This vast and far-reaching political revolution was accomplished
through the wholesale sacrifice of cherished ties by the friends of
free institutions and through their hearty union in the new party
of Freedom. The State in which this fusion of anti-slavery opinion
into Republicanism was first accomplished was Michigan, and the
Republican party as a distinct organization was born and christened
under the oaks of Jackson on the 6th of July, 1854. Political opinion
in that State was peculiarly ripe for this step. Its Whigs were with
but rare exceptions staunch anti-slavery men. Even Senator Cass's
great influence had failed to keep all the Democrats submissive to
pro-slavery compromises. The Free Soilers were strong in character
and several thousands in number. Thus when the opportunity came for
decisive action it found the men ready.
The Free Democrats of Michigan, encouraged by the increase in their
vote in 1852, and responding to an appeal of the "Independent Democrats
in Congress" (signed by Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua R.
Giddings, Gerrit Smith, Edward Wade, and Alexander De Witt) for popular
resistance to the attack on the Missouri compact, held the first
political convention of 1854 in that State. It met in Jackson, on
February 22d, under a call issued at Detroit on January 12, and signed
by U. Tracy Howe, Hovey K. Clarke, Samuel Zug, Silas M. Holmes, S. A.
Baker, S. B. Thayer, S. P. Mead, J. W. Childs, and Erastus Hussey,
forming the state central committee of that party. The convention
was called to order by Hovey K. Clarke, and it organized with Wm.
T. Howell of Hillsdale as president. The committee on resolutions
consisted of Hovey K. Clarke, Fernando C. Beaman, Kinsley S. Bingham,
E. Hussey, Nathan Power, D. C. Leach, and L. Moore, and a committee of
twenty-four was appointed to nominate a State ticket. The committee on
resolutions reported a platform prepared by Hovey K. Clarke, declaring
freedom national and slavery sectional, and denouncing the attempt to
repeal the Missouri compromise as an infamous outrage upon justice,
humanity and good faith. The nominating committee submitted this list
of candidates for the State offices:
Governor--Kinsley S. Bingham.
Lieutenant-Governor--Nathan Pierce.
Secretary of State--Lovell Moore.
State Treasurer--Silas M. Holmes.
Auditor-General--Philotus Hayden.
Attorney-General--Hovey K. Clarke.
Commissioner of Land Office--Seymour B. Treadwell.
Superintendent of Public Instruction--Elijah H. Pilcher.
Member of Board of Education--Isaac P. Christiancy.
Kinsley S. Bingham was a pioneer farmer of Central Michigan, one of
the very best representatives of his influential class, and a man of
sterling sense, strong convictions, and excellent abilities. He had
served with honor in the State Legislature, and had as a Democratic
Congressman sustained alone in his State delegation the Wilmot
Proviso. His nomination was in itself the strongest possible appeal
to the anti-slavery Democrats of the State. The ticket also had upon
it the names of gentlemen who had in the past acted with the Whigs.
The convention ratified the reports of its committees, and after
listening to a few speeches adjourned. It was a significant fact that
two of the speakers were conspicuous Whigs, Henry Barns of the Detroit
_Tribune_, and Halmer H. Emmons; Mr. Emmons was especially emphatic
in his expression of the hope that before the day of election "all
the friends of freedom would be able to stand upon a common platform
against the party and platform of the slave propagandists."
Cotemporaneously with this organized action of the Free Soilers, but
outside of it and of all party lines, there were held many public
meetings throughout Michigan to denounce the Kansas-Nebraska act.
Some of these were county conventions in form, and others were local
mass-meetings. One of the latter took place at Detroit on the 18th of
February; Zachariah Chandler was among the many prominent citizens who
signed its call, and was one of the five speakers from its platform
(the others were Jonathan Kearsley, Samuel Barstow, James A. Van Dyke,
and D. Bethune Duffield). The tone of all the speeches was wholesomely
defiant, and this was also true of the resolutions adopted which were
reported by a committee consisting of Samuel Barstow, Jacob M. Howard,
Joseph Warren, James M. Edmunds, and Henry H. Le Roy. The effect of
this demonstration in the metropolis of the State upon public opinion
was marked, and it and like non-partisan action did much to pave the
way for the fusion of July. Powerful contributions to the same movement
came also from the strong and growing current of sentiment in that
direction throughout the entire North, and from the significant results
of many of the spring elections. Both New Hampshire and Connecticut
elected anti-administration candidates in March and April, and in
Michigan anti-slavery coalitions were successful in quite a number of
municipal contests, notably in the important city of Grand Rapids which
chose Wilder D. Foster mayor on that issue.
Throughout the spring of 1854 many private conferences (Mr. Chandler
sharing in them) were held in Michigan among representative men of
the Whigs, Free Soilers, and Anti-Nebraska Democrats to discuss the
feasibility of union and consider plans for its accomplishment. The
early action of the Free Soilers was in fact a practical obstacle in
the way. That party represented but a small element of the anti-slavery
sentiment of Michigan, and neither the sincerity of its purpose, nor
its tender of the olive branch by placing Whig names on its State
ticket, nor the soundness of its platform on the slavery question could
counterbalance the many reasons why the Whigs would not surrender
a time-honored organization and march bodily into the camp of what
they had always regarded as a faction of impracticables. There was
also much in the State situation to encourage Whig hope, for the
party there was almost solidly anti-slavery and certain to profit by
the weakening of the enemy through the revolt of the Anti-Nebraska
Democrats. But there was a vigor of principle and an intelligence of
sentiment in the Whig party of Michigan which encouraged the belief
that it would not subordinate essentials to a name, and that it would
assent to an anti-slavery union under conditions not involving any
seeming self-degradation. In fact it was called upon to make the only
real sacrifice involved in the desired coalition. The Free Soilers
were powerless, and had nothing to lose and everything to gain in
the new movement; the Anti-Nebraska Democrats were condemned by, and
without influence in, their own party; but the Whigs were strong
in numbers, and were asked to surrender a historic name, honorable
traditions and reviving hope for a doubtful experiment. But that the
hour demanded precisely this act of self-denial was clear, and men
of resolution and principle grappled with the problem of making it
possible. Altogether the most important work in that direction was done
by Joseph Warren, editor of the Detroit _Tribune_, then an influential
Whig paper, which began the publication in its columns of a series of
vigorous and well-considered articles advocating the organization of
a new party composed of all the opponents of slavery extension. This
policy accorded with the drift of public opinion, and, involving as
it did the disbanding of both the Whig and Free Soil organizations,
avoided any appearance of surrender and humiliation. Public and private
discussion made its wisdom plainer, and the proof of its feasibility
was followed by steps for its accomplishment. An indispensable
preliminary was the withdrawal of the "Free Democrat" ticket, as this
would remove the chief stumbling-block in the path of the anti-slavery
Whigs. Mr. Warren, whose personal labors at this juncture were of the
utmost value, writes with reference to the spirit with which the Free
Soil leaders met the demand for this step:
One of the first and chiefest obstacles to be overcome in order to
ensure the co-operation of all the opponents of slavery extension
in the movement looking to the organization of a new party, was
to induce the Free Soilers to consent to the withdrawal of their
ticket from the field, thus placing themselves on the same footing
as the Whigs (who as yet had made no nominations), free from all
entangling alliances and in a position to act in a way likely to
prove most effectual. But formidable as this obstacle seemed to
be in the beginning, it was promptly removed through the wisely
directed and patriotic efforts of the prominent leaders of the
party. Such men as Hovey K. Clarke, Silas M. Holmes, Kinsley S.
Bingham, Seymour Treadwell, all on the Free Soil ticket, F. C.
Beaman, S. P. Mead, I. P. Christiancy, W. W. Murphy, Whitney Jones,
U. Tracy Howe, Jacob S. Farrand, Rev. S. A. Baker, proprietor,
and Rev. Jabez Fox, editor of the Detroit _Free Democrat_, were
especially active and influential in preparing the way for this
necessary preliminary step.
This readiness of the Free Soil leaders to make the sacrifices required
on their part bore prompt fruit. The Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed
by the House on the 22d of May, and three days after a stirring call
was issued for a mass convention of the Free Democrats of Michigan at
Kalamazoo on June 21st. The village of Kalamazoo had long been a center
of anti-slavery sentiment, and the agitation against the pending bill
had been especially vigorous there and in the surrounding counties.
The call was full of fiery denunciation of the slavery propagandists,
and its vigor and _vim_ showed how thoroughly the people were aroused.
The convention itself, owing to bad weather and other inauspicious
circumstances, was not a large one, but its character and action were
significant and important. Among those in attendance were four of
the candidates on the "Free Democrat" ticket, including Kinsley S.
Bingham. M. A. McNaughton was made president, and Hovey K. Clarke,
from the committee for that purpose, reported a series of resolutions
reviewing the disgraceful proceedings of the session of Congress,
denouncing the Kansas-Nebraska bill as the crowning act of a series of
aggressions by which slavery had become the great national interest
of the country, and appealing to the virtue of the people "to declare
in an unmistakable tone their will that slavery aggression upon their
rights shall go no further, that there shall be no compromise with
slavery, that there shall be no more slave States, that there shall
be no slave territory, that the Fugitive Slave law shall be repealed,
that the abominations of slavery shall no longer be perpetrated under
the sanctions of the federal constitution, and that they will make
their will effective by driving from every place of official power the
public servants who have so shamelessly betrayed their trust, and by
putting in their places men who are honest and capable, men who will be
faithful to the constitution and the great claims of humanity." A final
resolution directed the appointment of a committee of sixteen, two from
each judicial district, to consult with others for the organization
of a new party animated and guided by the principles expressed in
the resolutions, and it empowered that committee, in case of the
establishment of an "efficient organization" of such a character,
to surrender the "distinctive organization" of the "Free Democrats"
and withdraw the State ticket nominated on the 22d of February. This
action, reached after a vigorous discussion, cleared the way for the
coalition.
A few days before the meeting of the Kalamazoo convention, but after
its probable course had become apparent, a call had appeared in the
columns of the Detroit _Tribune_ (it was copied, after the Kalamazoo
action, by the Detroit _Free Democrat_ also) for a mass-meeting at
Jackson, on July 6, of all the opponents of slavery extension. This
was signed by several thousand leading citizens of Michigan, in all
parts of the State, including Zachariah Chandler, Jacob M. Howard, H.
P. Baldwin, H. K. Clarke, Franklin Moore, John Owen, Jacob S. Farrand,
Shubael Conant, J. J. Bagley, E. B. Ward, R. W. King, James Burns,
Charles M. Croswell, Allen Potter, Austin Blair, Isaac P. Christiancy,
Chas. T. Gorham, and others. The signatures filled two newspaper
columns in close type, and it was announced on the last day that
several hundred names had been received too late for publication. The
text of this document was as follows:
TO THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN.
A great wrong has been perpetrated. The slave power of this country
has triumphed. Liberty is trampled under foot. The Missouri
compromise, a solemn compact, entered into by our fathers, has been
violated, and a vast territory dedicated to freedom has been opened
to slavery.
This act, so unjust to the North, has been perpetrated under
circumstances which deepen its perfidy. An administration placed in
power by Northern votes has brought to bear all the resources of
executive corruption in its support.
Northern Senators and Representatives, in the face of the
overwhelming public sentiment of the North, expressed in the
proceedings of public meetings and solemn remonstrances, without
a single petition in its favor on their table, and not daring to
submit this great question to the people, have yielded to the
seductions of executive patronage, and, Judas-like, betrayed the
cause of liberty; while the South, inspired by a dominant and
grasping ambition, has, without distinction of party, and with
a unanimity almost entire, deliberately trampled under foot the
solemn compact entered into in the midst of a crisis threatening
to the peace of the Union, sanctioned by the greatest names of our
history, and the binding force of which has, for a period of more
than thirty years, been recognized and declared by numerous acts
of legislation. Such an outrage upon liberty, such a violation
of plighted faith, cannot be submitted to. This great wrong must
be righted, or there is no longer a North in the councils of the
nation. The extension of slavery, under the folds of the American
flag, is a stigma upon liberty. The indefinite increase of slave
representation in Congress is destructive to that equality between
freemen which is essential to the permanency of the Union.
The safety of the Union--the rights of the North--the interests of
free labor--the destiny of a vast territory and its untold millions
for all coming time--and finally, the high aspirations of humanity
for universal freedom, all are involved in the issue forced upon
the country by the slave power and its plastic Northern tools.
In view, therefore, of the recent action of Congress upon this
subject, and the evident designs of the slave power to attempt
still further aggressions upon freedom--we invite all our fellow
citizens, without reference to former political associations, who
think that the time has arrived for a _union_ at the North to
protect liberty from being overthrown and down-trodden, to assemble
in mass convention on Thursday, the 6th of July next, at 4 o'clock,
P. M., at Jackson, there to take such measures as shall be thought
best to concentrate the popular sentiment of this State against the
aggression of the slave power.
The response to this appeal was the gathering at Jackson, on a
bright mid-summer day, of hundreds of influential men from all parts
of Michigan, representing every shade of anti-slavery feeling, and
thoroughly alive to the importance of the occasion and the difficulty
of the task projected. The convention far outstripped in numbers the
preparations for its accommodation, and, after filling to excess the
largest hall in the town, it adjourned to meet in a beautiful oak
grove, situated between the village and the county race-course, on a
tract of land then known as "Morgan's Forty." The growth of Jackson has
since covered this historic ground with buildings, and the spacious
grove has dwindled to a few scattered oaks shading the city's busy
streets. A rude platform erected for speakers was appropriated by the
officers of the convention, and about it thronged a mass of earnest
men, the vanguard of the Republican host. In a body so incongruous
and unwieldy, confused purposes, discordant views, and conflicting
interests were unavoidable, but the universal fervor of the fusion
sentiment formed a broad foundation for harmonious action, and the
convention did not lack for shrewd and sagacious political managers
with the skill to direct earnest effort into practical channels. Such
differences of opinion as there were on questions of policy and as
to candidates exhausted themselves in private conferences and secret
committee deliberations, and the convention itself did its business
with promptness, without discord, and amid a genuine enthusiasm.
Its temporary chairman was the Hon. Levi Baxter, of Jonesville, a
pioneer settler of Southern Michigan, and the founder of a family of
marked prominence in that State. He was well known as the master spirit
of many important business enterprises, had been a Whig and then a Free
Soiler, and had been elected to the State Senate by a local coalition
of both those parties in his own county. After a brief address by
Mr. Baxter, Jeremiah Van Renselaer was chosen temporary secretary,
and this committee on permanent organization was appointed: Samuel
Barstow, C. H. Van Cleeck, Isaac P. Christiancy, G. W. Burchard, Lovell
Moore, James W. Hill, Henry W. Lord, and Newell Avery. While they were
deliberating, the convention adjourned to the oak grove, and there
listened to brief speeches until a permanent organization was effected
with the following gentlemen as officers of the first Republican State
convention ever held:
President--David S. Walbridge, of Kalamazoo.
Vice-Presidents--F. C. Beaman, Oliver Johnson, Rudolph Diepenbeck,
Thomas Curtis, C. T. Gorham, Pliny Power, Emanuel Mann, Charles
Draper, George Winslow, Norman Little, John McKinney, W. W. Murphy.
Secretaries--J. Van Renselaer, J. F. Conover, A. B. Turner.
Mr. Walbridge was a prominent merchant of Central Michigan, and an
exceedingly active and earnest Whig. He had already served several
terms in the Legislature and was afterward a Republican Congressman
for four years from Michigan. His selection as president of the
convention was a wise recognition of the important Whig element in its
membership. The great throng next separated into representatives of
the four congressional districts, and chose the following committee
on resolutions: Jacob M. Howard, Austin Blair, Donald McIntyre, John
Hilsendegen, Charles Noble, Alfred R. Metcalf, John W. Turner, Levi
Baxter, Marsh Giddings, E. Hussey, A. Williams, John McKinney, Chas.
Draper, M. L. Higgins, J. E. Simmonds, Z. B. Knight. The chairmanship
of this important committee naturally fell to Jacob M. Howard,
of Detroit, a lawyer of eminence and rare powers, the first Whig
Congressman from Michigan, and a man of deservedly high reputation
for intellectual vigor and personal integrity. He was afterward for
nine years a Republican Senator, and at Washington earned national
distinction as the author of the Thirteenth Amendment and by much
able and laborious public service. Mr. Howard had prepared a draft
of a platform in advance of the convention, and the committee met to
consider it under a clump of trees on the outskirts of the grove (at
the present intersection of Franklin and Second streets in the city
of Jackson). No material modifications were made in the document,
which was adopted substantially as written by Mr. Howard, except that
Austin Blair proposed to add two resolutions relating to State affairs
purely. As to the expediency of this action there was some difference
of opinion, and finally Mr. Blair submitted his propositions as a
minority report, and the convention adopted and thus added them to the
main platform. Over the resolution formally christening the new party
"Republican," there was no especial discussion. There had already been
suggestions made throughout the country that, for the new organization
evidently about to be born, it might be expedient to revive "the name
of that wise conservative party, whose aim and purpose were the welfare
of the whole Union and the stainless honor of the American name."[4]
The history of this resolution in the Howard platform has been thus
given with undoubted correctness by Mr. Joseph Warren in a published
letter: "The honor of having named and christened the party the writer
has always claimed and now insists belongs jointly to Jacob M. Howard,
Horace Greeley and himself. Soon after the writer began to advocate,
through the columns of the _Tribune_, the organization of all opponents
of slavery into a single party, Horace Greeley voluntarily opened a
correspondence with him in regard to this movement, in which he frankly
communicated his views and gave him many valuable suggestions as to the
wisest course to be pursued. This correspondence was necessarily very
short, as it began and ended in June, it being only five weeks from the
repeal of the compromise, May 30, to the Jackson convention. In his
last letter, received only a day or two before it was to assemble, Mr.
Greeley suggested to him 'Republican,' according to his recollection,
but, as Mr. Howard contended, 'Democrat-Republican,' as an appropriate
name for the proposed new party. But this is of comparatively little
consequence. The material fact is, that this meeting the writer's
cordial approval, he gave Mr. Greeley's letter containing the
suggestions to Mr. Howard on the day of the convention, after he had
been appointed chairman of the committee on resolutions, and strongly
advised its adoption. This was done and the platform adopted."
While the committee on resolutions was absent, the convention was
addressed by Zachariah Chandler, Kinsley S. Bingham, and a number of
others. No complete record was made of Mr. Chandler's remarks upon
this occasion, but the report of the convention in the Detroit _Free
Democrat_, prepared by its secretary, contains this: "We would say in
parenthesis that an allusion most generously made by Mr. Chandler to
Mr. Bingham drew from the crowd three rousing cheers for the latter
gentleman." The Jackson _Citizen_ also gave the following reference
to Mr. Chandler's remarks: "When in the course of his speech he gave
a brief history of the Wilmot Proviso in Michigan, alluding to the
anti-slavery resolutions passed by a Democratic State convention
in 1849, and the resolutions of instructions to our Senators and
Representatives in Congress by the Legislature on the same subject,
and then exclaimed that 'not one of our Representatives had ever been
_honest_ enough to carry them out except Kinsley S. Bingham, a spark
of enthusiasm fired the crowd, the shout of approbation ran through
the vast assembly, and, if any doubt had previously existed as to who
should be the man, that doubt was then removed." These addresses were
followed by the report of the committee on resolutions, which was read
by Mr. Howard amid frequent outbursts of applause, and was as follows:
The freemen of Michigan, assembled in convention in pursuance of
a spontaneous call, emanating from various parts of the State, to
consider upon the measures which duty demands of us, as citizens of
a free State, to take in reference to the late acts of Congress on
the subject of slavery and its anticipated further extension, do
_Resolve_, That the institution of slavery except in punishment
of crime is a great moral, social and political evil; that it was
so regarded by the fathers of the republic, the founders and best
friends of the Union, by the heroes and sages of the Revolution
who contemplated and intended its gradual and peaceful extinction
as an element hostile to the liberties for which they toiled;
that its history in the United States, the experience of men best
acquainted with its workings, the dispassionate confession of
those who are interested in it; its tendency to relax the vigor
of industry and enterprise inherited in the white man; the very
surface of the earth where it subsists; the vices and immoralities
which are its natural growth; the stringent police, often wanting
in humanity and revolting to the sentiments of every generous
heart, which it demands; the danger it has already wrought and the
future danger which it portends to the security of the Union and
our constitutional liberties--all incontestably prove it to lie
such evil. Surely that institution is not to be strengthened and
encouraged against which Washington, the calmest and wisest of our
nation, bore unequivocal testimony; as to which Jefferson, filled
with a love of liberty, exclaimed: "Can the liberties of a nation
be ever thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis,
a conviction in the minds of the people that their liberties are
THE GIFT OF GOD; that they are not to be violated but with His
wrath? Indeed, I tremble, for my country when I reflect that God
is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; that, considering
numbers, nature and natural means only, a revolution of the wheel
of fortune, an exchange of situation is among possible events; that
it may become probable by supernatural interference! The Almighty
has no attribute which can take sides with us in such a contest!"
And as to which another eminent patriot in Virginia, on the close
of the Revolution, also exclaimed: "Had we turned our eyes inwardly
when we supplicated the Father of Mercies to aid the injured and
oppressed, when we invoked the Author of Righteousness to attest
the purity of our motives and the justice of our cause, and
implored the God of battles to aid our exertions in its defense,
should we not have stood more self-convicted than the contrite
publican?" We believe these sentiments to be as true now as they
were then.
_Resolved_, That slavery is a violation of the rights of man as
man; that the law of nature, which is the law of liberty, gives to
no man rights superior to those of another; that God and nature
have secured to each individual the inalienable right of equality,
any violation of which must be the result of superior force; and
that slavery therefore is a perpetual war upon its victims; that
whether we regard the institution as first originating in captures
made in war, or the subjection of the debtor as the slave of his
creditor, or the forcible seizure and sale of children by their
parents or subjects by their king, and whether it be viewed in
this country as a "_necessary evil_" or otherwise, we find it to
be, like imprisonment for debt, but a relic of barbarism as well
as an element of weakness in the midst of the State, inviting the
attack of external enemies, and a ceaseless cause of internal
apprehension and alarm. Such are the lessons taught us, not only
by the histories of other commonwealths, but by that of our own
beloved country.
_Resolved_, That the history of the formation of the constitution,
and particularly the enactment of the ordinance of July 13, 1787,
prohibiting slavery north of the Ohio, abundantly shows it to have
been the purpose of our fathers not to promote but to prevent
the spread of slavery. And we, reverencing their memories and
cherishing free republican faith as our richest inheritance, which
we vow, at whatever expense, to defend, thus publicly proclaim our
determination to oppose by all the powerful and honorable means in
our power, now and henceforth, all attempts, direct or indirect, to
extend slavery in this country, or to permit it to extend into any
region or locality in which it does not now exist by positive law,
or to admit new slave States into the Union.
_Resolved_, That the constitution of the United States gives to
Congress full and complete power for the municipal government of
the territories thereof, a power which from its nature cannot be
either alienated or abdicated without yielding up to the territory
an absolute political independence, which involves an absurdity.
That the exercise of this power necessarily looks to the formation
of States to be admitted into the Union; and on the question
whether they shall be admitted as _free_ or _slave_ States Congress
has a right to adopt such prudential and preventive measures as
the principles of liberty and the interests of the whole country
require. That this question is one of the gravest importance to
the free States, inasmuch as the constitution itself creates an
inequality in the apportionment of representatives, greatly to the
detriment of the free and to the advantage of the slave States.
This question, so vital to the interests of the free States (but
which we are told by certain political doctors of modern times is
to be treated with utter indifference) is one which we hold it to
be our right to _discuss_; which we hold it the duty of Congress
in every instance to determine in unequivocal language, and in
a manner to _prevent_ the spread of slavery and the increase of
such unequal representation. In short, we claim that the North is
a _party to the new bargain, and is entitled to have a voice and
influence in settling its terms_. And in view of the ambitious
designs of the slave power, we regard the man or the party who
would forego this right, as untrue to the honor and interest of the
North and unworthy of its support.
_Resolved_, That the repeal of the "Missouri Compromise," contained
in the recent act of Congress for the creation of the territories
of Nebraska and Kansas, thus admitting slavery into a region till
then sealed against it by law, equal in extent to the thirteen old
States, is an act unprecedented in the history of the country, and
one which must engage the earnest and serious attention of every
Northern man. And as Northern freemen, independent of all former
parties, we here hold this measure up to the public execration, for
the following reasons:
That it is a plain departure from the policy of the fathers of
the republic in regard to slavery, and a wanton and dangerous
frustration of their purposes and their hopes.
That it actually admits _and was intended to admit_ slavery into
said territories, and thus (to use the words applied by Judge
Tucker, of Virginia, to the fathers of that commonwealth) "sows the
seeds of an evil which like a leprosy hath descended upon their
posterity with accumulated rancor, visiting the sins of the fathers
upon succeeding generations." That it was sprung upon the country
stealthily and by surprise, without necessity, without petition,
and without previous discussion, thus violating the cardinal
principle of republican government, which requires all legislation
to accord with the opinions and sentiments of the people.
That on the part of the South it is an open and undisguised
breach of faith, as contracted between the North and South in
the settlement of the Missouri question in 1820, by which the
tranquillity of the two sections was restored; a compromise binding
upon all honorable men.
That it is also an open violation of the compromise of 1850, by
which, for the sake of peace, and to calm the distempered pulse of
certain enemies of the Union at the South, the North accepted and
acquiesced in the odious "fugitive slave law" of that year.
That it is also an undisguised and unmanly contempt of the pledge
given to the country by the present dominant party at their
national convention in 1852, not to "_agitate the subject of
slavery in or out of Congress_," being the same convention that
nominated Franklin Pierce to the Presidency.
That it is greatly injurious to the free States, and to the
Territories themselves, tending to retard the settlement and to
prevent the improvement of the country by means of free labor, and
to discourage foreign immigrants resorting thither for their homes.
[Illustration: THE FIRST REPUBLICAN STATE CONVENTION.
"UNDER THE OAKS," JACKSON, MICH., JULY 6, 1854.]
That one of its principal aims is to give to the slave States
such a decided and practical preponderance in all the measures of
government as shall reduce the North, with all her industry, wealth
and enterprise, to be the mere province of a few slaveholding
oligarchs of the South--a condition too shameful to be contemplated.
Because, as openly avowed by its Southern friends, it is intended
as an entering wedge to the still further augmentation of the slave
power by the acquisition of the other Territories, cursed with the
same "leprosy."
_Resolved_, That the obnoxious measure to which we have alluded
ought to be _repealed_, and a provision substituted for it,
prohibiting slavery in said Territories, and each of them.
_Resolved_, That after this gross breach of faith and wanton
affront to us as Northern men, we hold ourselves absolved from all
"_compromises_" (except those expressed in the constitution) for
the protection of slavery and slave-owners; that we now demand
measures of protection and immunity for ourselves; and among them
we demand the _repeal of the fugitive slave law_, and an act to
abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.
_Resolved_, That we notice without dismay certain popular
indications by slaveholders on the frontier of said Territories of
a purpose on their part to prevent by violence the settlement of
the country by non-slaveholding men. To the latter we say: Be of
good cheer, persevere in the right, remember the Republican motto,
"THE NORTH WILL DEFEND YOU."
_Resolved_, That postponing and suspending all differences with
regard to political economy or administrative policy, in view of
the imminent danger that Kansas and Nebraska will be grasped by
slavery, and a thousand miles of slave soil be thus interposed
between the free States of the Atlantic and those of the Pacific,
we will act cordially and faithfully in unison to avert and repeal
this gigantic wrong and shame.
_Resolved_, That in view of the necessity of battling for the first
principles of republican government, and against the schemes of an
aristocracy, the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth
was ever cursed, or man debased, we will co-operate and be known as
REPUBLICANS until the contest be terminated.
_Resolved_, That we earnestly recommend the calling of a general
convention of the free States, and such of the slaveholding States,
or portions thereof, as may desire to be there represented, with a
view to the adoption of other more extended and effectual measures
in resistance to the encroachments of slavery; and that a committee
of five persons be appointed to correspond and co-operate with our
friends in other States on the subject.
_Resolved_, That in relation to the domestic affairs of the State
we urge a more economical administration of the government and a
more rigid accountability of the public officers: a speedy payment
of the balance of the public debt, and the lessening of the amount
of taxation: a careful preservation of the primary school and
university funds, and their diligent application to the great
objects for which they were created; and also further legislation
to prevent the unnecessary or imprudent sale of the lands belonging
to the State.
_Resolved_, That in our opinion the commercial wants of Michigan
require the enactment of a general railroad law, which, while
it shall secure the investment and encourage the enterprise of
stockholders, shall also guard and protect the rights of the public
and of individuals, and that the preparation of such a measure
requires the first talents of the State.
The resolutions were adopted almost unanimously, and thereupon Isaac
P. Christiancy, as chairman of the committee of sixteen appointed by
the Kalamazoo convention, came forward and announced the absolute
abandonment of the State ticket and organization of the Free
Democracy--an act which was greeted with loud and prolonged applause. A
committee of ninety, consisting of three from each Senatorial district
in the State, and including the names of Jacob M. Howard, Moses
Wisner, Charles M. Croswell, Fernando C. Beaman, and Chas. T. Gorham,
was next appointed to nominate a State ticket, and the convention
adjourned until evening. At that session, which was held in one of the
village halls, a State central committee was chosen, and the committee
on nominations reported the following ticket which was unanimously
endorsed by the convention, this closing its formal proceedings:
Governor--Kinsley S. Bingham, of Livingston.
Lieutenant-Governor--George A. Coe, of Branch.
Secretary of State--John McKinney, of Van Buren.
State Treasurer--Silas M. Holmes, of Wayne.
Attorney-General--Jacob M. Howard, of Wayne.
Auditor-General--Whitney Jones, of Ingham.
Commissioner of Land Office--Seymour B. Treadwell, of Jackson.
Superintendent of Public Instruction--Ira Mayhew, of Monroe.
Member Board of Education--John R. Kellogg, of Allegan.
(To fill vacancy)--Hiram L. Miller, of Saginaw.
The response of the anti-slavery masses to the action of the convention
was prompt and cordial. Some of the more earnest and enthusiastic
Whigs who had hoped that the Northern wing of their party could be
transformed into an efficient champion of slavery restriction--Mr.
Chandler had shared in this feeling--at first doubted the wisdom of
what had been done. They found themselves called upon to make large
sacrifices of cherished traditions and ties, and felt that their
representation upon the fusion State ticket was not in due proportion
to the number of votes they would be expected to contribute to its
election. But this not unnatural feeling of early disappointment
had but a brief existence among the Whigs of strong anti-slavery
convictions. As the good faith of the movement, the spontaneous
character of the popular uprising, and the possibility of accomplishing
anti-slavery union throughout the North became clear, they laid aside
all hesitation and joined with sincere ardor in the work of Republican
organization. Before the close of the summer of 1854 the strong
leaders and the intelligent rank and file of the Michigan Whigs had
accepted the new fellowship, and the action of the Jackson convention
received their hearty acquiescence and loyal support. Mr. Chandler
rendered valuable service in the following campaign as an organizer of
Republicanism throughout Michigan, and put into this work enough of his
characteristic vigor to earn from the Democratic papers the title of
the "traveling agent" of the "new Abolition party."
There was still among the Whigs a small conservative minority who,
chiefly through the inspiration of pro-slavery sentiment and under
the leadership of the Detroit _Advertiser_, made a desperate effort
to prevent the abandonment of their party organization. They procured
the signing of a circular addressed to the Whig committee asking that
a State convention should be held, and in compliance with this request
a call was issued for a convention to meet at Marshall on October 4.
When it assembled it was found that the great majority of its delegates
favored union with the Republicans. They controlled its proceedings
throughout, and put in the chair Rufus Hosmer who was then the head of
the new Republican State central committee, elected a State central
committee composed of ardent fusionists, defeated the schemes for the
nomination of a ticket, and issued an address urging the Whigs of
Michigan to unite in this campaign with all other opponents of the
spread of slavery. This decisive action made the Michigan election of
1854 a contest between Republicanism and the Democracy (which held its
convention at Detroit on September 14, and placed John S. Barry at the
head of its State ticket).
The local result of the Jackson convention was a permanent political
revolution. In November the Republicans elected their entire State
ticket (giving Mr. Bingham 43,652 votes to 38,675 for Mr. Barry),
three of the four Congressmen, and a Legislature with an overwhelming
majority in both branches against the Kansas-Nebraska policy. The
Republican ascendancy thus established in Michigan has never been
impaired. That party has been victorious in every State election since
1854; and of the Governors since chosen every one who was at that time
a resident of the State (Henry H. Crapo did not settle in Michigan
until 1856) was a member of the Jackson convention. Michigan has also
since sent only Republicans to the Senate; every one of them except
Thomas W. Ferry (who had barely attained his majority in 1854) was a
prominent actor in the scenes "under the oaks." It has sent seventy-six
Republicans and only seven Democrats to the House of Representatives,
and the Republicans have controlled both branches of every Legislature
since 1854. Iowa is the only State which can point to a similar record
of uninterrupted Republican victory. In Vermont the Democrats have been
uniformly defeated, but the opposition ticket in 1854 was not called
Republican. Of the States which have been admitted since 1854, three
(Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota) have been steadfastly Republican, but
Michigan surpasses them in the duration, while she equals them in the
quality, of her fidelity to the party of Freedom. Each of the other
Northern States has at least once chosen an anti-Republican Governor,
while Michigan (with Iowa) has been uniformly Republican.
The claim that Michigan was the first State to organize and name the
Republican party cannot be successfully disputed.[5] The convention
"under the oaks" of Jackson ante-dates by a week or more all similar
bodies. The first Republican convention in Wisconsin was held at
Madison on July 13, 1854. Its call was issued (July 9) after a number
of Anti-Nebraska meetings had been held in different parts of the
State, and invited "all men opposed to the repeal of the Missouri
compromise and the extension of the slave power" to take part. This
convention adopted the following as one of its resolutions:
_Resolved_, That we accept the issue forced upon us by the slave
power, and in defense of Freedom, will co-operate and be known as
Republicans.
The Anti-Nebraska men of Massachusetts met in convention on July 19
of the same year, and organized the Republican party in that State by
adopting the following resolution:
_Resolved_, That in co-operation with the friends of Freedom in
sister States, we hereby form the Republican party of Massachusetts.
But the Republicans did not carry Massachusetts that year, the
Anti-Nebraska vote being cast almost solidly for the successful
Know-Nothing ticket. In Vermont, on July 13, 1854, a mass convention
was held of persons "in favor of resisting, by all constitutional
means, the usurpations of the propagandists of slavery." Among the
resolutions there adopted was one which closed with these words: "We
propose and respectfully recommend to the friends of Freedom in other
States to co-operate and be known as Republicans." A State ticket was
nominated, but, the State committees of the various parties being
empowered "to fill vacancies," a fusion ticket was afterward placed in
the field, voted for and elected under the name of Fusion. On the same
day a convention was held in Columbus, O., which organized a canvass
which swept that State at the fall elections; during this campaign
most of the Anti-Nebraska candidates called themselves Republicans,
and the party formally adopted that name at the State convention in
1855 which nominated Salmon P. Chase for Governor. It will be seen
that the Jackson convention preceded all these kindred gatherings. To
this statement may be profitably added the testimony of Henry Wilson,
who, after thoroughly investigating the whole subject of the origin of
Republicanism, wrote:[6]
But whatever suggestions others may have made, or whatever action
may have been taken elsewhere, to Michigan belongs the honor of
being the first State to form and christen the Republican party.
More than three months before the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska
bill the Free Soil convention had adopted a mixed ticket, made
up of Free-Soilers and Whigs, in order that there might be a
combination of the anti-slavery elements of the State. Immediately
on the passage of the Nebraska bill, Joseph Warren, editor of
the Detroit _Tribune_, entered upon a course of measures that
resulted in bringing the Whig and Free Soil parties together, not
by a mere coalition of the two, but by a fusion of the elements
of which the two were composed. In his own language, he "took
ground in favor of disbanding the Whig and Free Soil parties and
of the organization of a new party, composed of all the opponents
of slavery extension." Among the first steps taken toward the
accomplishment of this vitally important object was the withdrawal
of the Free Soil ticket. This having been effected, a call for a
mass convention was issued signed by more than 10,000 names. The
convention met on the 6th day of July, and was largely attended.
A platform drawn by the Hon. Jacob M. Howard, afterward United
States Senator from Michigan, was adopted, not only opposing the
extension of slavery, but declaring in favor of its abolition
in the District of Columbia. The report also proposed the name
of "Republican" for the new party, which was adopted by the
convention. Kinsley S. Bingham was nominated for Governor, and
was triumphantly elected; and Michigan, thus early to enter the
ranks of the Republican party, has remained steadfast to its then
publicly-avowed principles and faith.
It is true that the Michigan convention of July 6, 1854, was only one
development of a vast national agitation. The forces that gave it being
were at work throughout the continent. Like movements were on foot in
every Northern State. Kindred bodies met in the same month to take
the same action. But to the men who gathered on that mid-summer day
in the oak grove at Jackson belongs the honor of being the first to
comprehend a great opportunity; they were wise enough to improve all
its possibilities, and there founded and named the party of the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Israel Washburn in an address at Bangor, Me.
[5] The Senator from Virginia has stated that the Republican party
originated in New England, from Know Nothingism. It is not true, sir;
it had no such origin; it originated in no such place and from no
such source. The Republican party was born in Michigan, on the sixth
day of July, 1854. It had no origin from Know Nothingism or any other
thing, except the outrageous, the infamous repeal of the time-honored
Missouri compromise by the Congress of that year. It was christened
the Republican party at its birth. It is perfectly evident the Senator
from Virginia knows nothing at all about the Republican party, its
origin, its ends, or its aims. He does not know anything about its
birth or its principles. I merely wish to correct the misapprehension
on his part that it was born in New England or anywhere else out of the
State of Michigan. There is where it was born, sir; and we glory in the
production of such a child.--_Mr. Chandler in the Senate, December 14,
1859, in reply to Senator Mason, of Virginia._
[6] Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America," volume 2,
page 412.