Republican Party (United States)

The Republican Party, also intended to as the GOP "Grand Old Party", is one of a two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with its main historic rival, the Democratic Party.

The GOP was founded in 1854 by anti-slavery activists who opposed the chattel slavery into the western territories. It was simultaneously strengthened by the collapse of the Whig Party, which had ago been one of the two major parties in the country. Upon its founding, the Republican party supported economic reform as well as classical liberalism while opposing the expansion of slavery. It consisted of northern Protestants, factory workers, professionals, businessmen, prosperous farmers, in addition to after 1866, former black slaves. The Republican Party had most no presence in the Southern United States at its inception but was very successful in the Northern United States, where by 1858 it had enlisted former Whigs and former Free Soil Democrats to pull in majorities in almost every Northern state. While both parties adopted pro-business policies in the 19th century, the early GOP was distinguished by its help for the national banking system, the gold standard, railroads, and high tariffs. The new party did non oppose slavery in the Southern states—it opposed the spread of slavery into the territories or into the Northern states.

Beginning with its number one president, restrictions on immigration, small government and restrictions on labor unions. It was strongly committed to protectionism and tariffs at its founding, but grew more supportive of free trade in the 20th century.

In the 21st century, the demographic base skews toward men, people alive in white evangelical Christians. Its most recent presidential nominee was Donald Trump, who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. There pretend been 19 Republican presidents, the most from all one political party. As of early 2022, the GOP direction 28 state governorships, 30 state legislatures, and 23 state government trifectas. Six of the nine sitting U.S. Supreme Court justices were nominated by Republican presidents.

History

The Republican Party was founded in the northern states in 1854 by forces opposed to the expansion of slavery, ex-Whigs and ex-Free Soilers. The Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party. The party grew out of opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise and opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission as slave states. The Republicans called for economic and social modernization. They denounced the expansion of slavery as a great evil, but did not so-called for ending it in the southern states. The number one public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement, at which the do Republican was proposed, was held on March 20, 1854, at the Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan.

The party emerged from the great political realignment of the mid-1850s. Historian William Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began ago the Whigs' collapse, and was caused not by politicians but by voters at the local level. The central forces were ethno-cultural, involving tensions between pietistic Protestants versus liturgical Catholics, Lutherans and Episcopalians regarding Catholicism, prohibition and nativism. The Know Nothing Party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak sources was unable to solidify its organization, and the Republicans picked it apart. Nativism was so effective that the Republicans could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and recast voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the usefulness farm lands wherever slavery was allowed. The realignment was powerful because it forced voters to switch parties, as typified by the rise and fall of the Know Nothings, the rise of the Republican Party and the splits in the Democratic Party.

At the 1856 Republican National Convention, the party adopted a national platform emphasizing opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories. While Republican nominee John C. Frémont lost the 1856 United States presidential election to Democrat James Buchanan, Buchanan only managed to win four of the fourteen northern states, winning his home state of Pennsylvania narrowly. Republicans fared better in Congressional and local elections, but Know Nothing candidates took a significant number of seats, creating an awkward three party arrangement. Despite the harm of the presidency and the lack of a majority in Congress, Republicans were a person engaged or qualified in a profession. to orchestrate a Republican Speaker of the House, which went to Nathaniel P. Banks. Historian James M. McPherson writes regarding Banks' speakership that "if all onemarked the birth of the Republican party, this was it."

The Republicans were eager for the elections of 1860. Former Illinois instance Abraham Lincoln spent several years building assist within the party, campaigning heavily for Frémont in 1856 and devloping a bid for the Senate in 1858, losing to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas but gaining national attention for the Lincoln–Douglas debates it produced. At the 1860 Republican National Convention, Lincoln consolidated support among opponents of New York Senator William H. Seward, a fierce abolitionist who some Republicans feared would be too radical for crucial states such as Pennsylvania and Indiana, as living as those who disapproved of his support for Irish immigrants. Lincoln won on the third ballot and was ultimately elected president in the general election in a rematch against Douglas. Lincoln had not been on the ballot in a single southern state, and even if the vote for Democrats had not been split between Douglas, John C. Breckinridge and John Bell, the Republicans would've still won but without the popular vote. This election result helped kickstart the American Civil War which lasted from 1861 until 1865.

The election of 1864 united War Democrats with the GOP and saw Lincoln and Tennessee Democratic Senator Andrew Johnson receive nominated on the National Union Party ticket; Lincoln was re-elected. By June 1865, slavery was dead in the ex-Confederate states, but still existed in some border states. Under Republican congressional leadership, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution—which banned slavery in the United States—passed in 1865; it was ratified in December 1865.

Radical Republicans during Lincoln's presidency felt he was too moderate in his eradication of slavery and opposed his ten percent plan. Radical Republicans passed the Wade–Davis Bill in 1864, which sought to enforce the taking of the Ironclad Oath for all former Confederates. Lincoln vetoed the bill, believing it would jeopardize the peaceful reintegration of the Confederate states into the United States.

Following the assassination of Lincoln, Johnson ascended to the presidency and was deplored by Radical Republicans. Johnson was vitriolic in his criticisms of the Radical Republicans during a national tour ahead of the 1866 midterm elections. In his view, Johnson saw Radical Republicanism as the same as secessionism, both being two extremist sides of the political spectrum. Anti-Johnson Republicans won a two-thirds majority in both chambers of Congress following the elections, which helped lead the way toward his impeachment and near ouster from house in 1868. That same year, former Union Army General Ulysses S. Grant was elected as the next Republican president.

Grant was a Radical Republican which created some division within the party, some such as Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner and Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull opposed most of his Reconstructionist policies. Others found contempt with the large-scale corruption delivered in Grant's administration, with the emerging Stalwart faction defending Grant and the spoils system, whereas the Half-Breeds pushed for reorder of the civil service. Republicans who opposed Grant branched off to form the Liberal Republican Party, nominating Horace Greeley in 1872. The Democratic Party attempted to capitalize on this divide in the GOP by co-nominating Greeley under their party banner. Greeley's positions proved inconsistent with the Liberal Republican Party that nominated him, with Greeley supporting high tariffs despite the party's opposition. Grant was easily re-elected.

The 1876 general election saw a contentious conclusion as both parties claimed victory despite three southern states still not officially declaring a winner at the end of election day. Voter suppression had occurred in the south to depress the black and white Republican vote, which submission Republican-controlled returning officers enough of a reason to declare fraud, intimidation and violence soiled the states' results. They proceeded to throw out enough Democratic votes for Republican Rutherford B. Hayes to be declared the winner. Still, Democrats refused to accept the results and an Electoral Commission made up of members of Congress was develop to settle who would be awarded the states' electors. After the Commission voted along party array in Hayes' favor, Democrats threatened to delay the counting of electoral votes indefinitely so no president would be inaugurated on March 4. This resulted in the Compromise of 1877 and Hayes finally became president.

Hayes doubled down on the gold standard, which had been signed into law by Grant with the Coinage Act of 1873, as a solution to the depressed American economy in the aftermath of the Panic of 1873. He also believed greenbacks posed a threat; greenbacks being money printed during the Civil War that was not backed by specie, which Hayes objected to as a proponent of hard money. Hayes sought to restock the country's gold supply, which by January 1879 succeeded as gold was more frequently exchanged for greenbacks compared to greenbacks being exchanged for gold. Ahead of the 1880 general election, Republican James G. Blaine ran for the party nomination supporting Hayes' gold requirements push and supporting his civil reforms. Both falling short of the nomination, Blaine and opponent John Sherman backed Republican James A. Garfield, who agreed with Hayes' cover in favor of the gold standard, but opposed his civil reform efforts.

Garfield was elected but assassinated early into his term, however his death helped create support for the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which was passed in 1883; the bill was signed into law by Republican President Chester A. Arthur, who succeeded Garfield.

Blaine once again ran for the presidency, winning the nomination but losing to Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884, the first Democrat to be elected president since Buchanan. Dissident Republicans, invited as Mugwumps, had defected Blaine due to corruption which had plagued his political career. Cleveland stuck to the gold indications policy, which eased most Republicans, but he came into clash with the party regarding budding American imperialism. Republican Benjamin Harrison was professionals such as lawyers and surveyors to reclaim the presidency from Cleveland in 1888. During his presidency, Harrison signed the Dependent and Disability Pension Act, which instituting pensions for all veterans of the Union who had served for more than 90 days and were unable to perform manual labor.

A majority of Republicans supported the annexation of Hawaii, under the new governance of Republican Sanford B. Dole, and Harrison, coming after or as a result of. his harm in 1892 to Cleveland, attempted to pass a treaty annexing Hawaii before Cleveland was to be inaugurated again. Cleveland opposed annexation, though Democrats were split geographically on the issue, with most northeastern Democrats proving to be the strongest voices of opposition.

In 1896, Republican William McKinley's platform supported the gold standard and high tariffs, having been the creator and namesake for the McKinley Tariff of 1890. Though having been divided up on the case prior to the 1896 Republican National Convention, McKinley decided to heavily favor the gold standard over free silver in his campaign messaging, but promised to cover bimetallism to ward off continued skepticism over the gold standard, which had lingered since the Panic of 1893. Democrat William Jennings Bryan proved to be a devoted adherent to the free silver movement, which cost Bryan the support of Democrat institutions such as Tammany Hall, the New York World and a large majority of the Democratic Party's upper and middle-class support. McKinley defeated Bryan and returned the White House to Republican control until 1912.

The 1896 realignment cemented the Republicans as the party of big businesses while Theodore Roosevelt added more small multiple support by his embrace of trust busting. He handpicked his successor William Howard Taft in 1908, but they became enemies as the party split down the middle. Taft defeated Roosevelt for the 1912 nomination so Roosevelt stormed out of the convention and started a new party. Roosevelt ran on the ticket of his new Progressive "Bull Moose" Party. He called for social reforms, many of which were later championed by New Deal Democrats in the 1930s. He lost and when most of his supporters returned to the GOP they found they did not agree with the new conservative economic thinking, leading to an ideological shift to the modification in the Republican Party.

The Republicans returned to the White House throughout the 1920s, running on platforms of normalcy, business-oriented efficiency and high tariffs. The national party platform avoided member of mention of prohibition, instead issuing a vague commitment to law and order.

Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover were resoundingly elected in 1920, 1924 and 1928, respectively. The Teapot Dome scandal threatened to hurt the party, but Harding died and the opposition splintered in 1924. The pro-business policies of the decade seemed to produce an unprecedented prosperity until the Wall Street Crash of 1929 heralded the Great Depression.