Interesting Historic Facts on the Republican Party

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This is where we are going to share interesting historic facts on the Republican Party. You are also welcome to share your own thoughts on the party, your personal experiences with the party and your opinion about its philosophy, its evolution and its future prospects.

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The Republican party is popularly known as the GOP, from its earlier nickname of the Grand Old Party. From its first presidential candidate, John C. Fremont, in 1856, through Republican George W Bush in 2000, Republicans have occupied the White House for 84 years.

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Originally, Republican strength came primarily from New England and the Midwest. After World War II, however, it greatly increased in the Sunbelt states and the West.

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The Republican party was a success from the beginning. In the 1854 congressional elections 44 Republicans were elected to the House of Representatives and several were elected to the Senate and various state houses. In 1856, at the first Republican national convention, Sen. John C. Fremont was nominated for the presidency but was defeated by Democrat James Buchanan.

Two days after the inauguration of James Buchanan, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision, which was denounced by the Republicans. The split in the Democratic party over the issue of slavery continued, and in 1858 the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives for the first time.

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The second Republican national convention in 1860 resulted in the presidential nomination of Abraham Lincoln. The Republican platform pledged not to extend slavery and called for enactment of free-homestead legislation, prompt establishment of a daily overland mail service, a transcontinental railroad, and support of the protective tariff. Lincoln was opposed by three major candidates-Stephen Douglas (Northern Democrat), John Cabell Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), and John Bell (Constitutional Union party). Lincoln received almost half a million votes more than Douglas, but won the election with only 39.8 percent of the popular vote.

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In 1952 the Republican national convention nominated Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower to head its ticket. Although the party was split over the defeat of conservative senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio for that nomination, its ticket went on to win a landslide victory, carrying 39 states. The 1956 ticket of Eisenhower and Nixon won another decisive victory, due in part to Eisenhower's moderate course in foreign policy, his successful ending of the Korean War, and his great personal popularity. Democratic control of both houses, however, won in 1954, was continued.

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In 1968, Richard Nixon reappeared to win the party's nomination and selected Maryland governor Spiro T. Agnew as his running mate. Nixon went on to win the election over Democrat Hubert H. Humphrey, who was unable to bring his party together after divisions brought on by U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

President Nixon's first term was marked by many successes, including improved relations with China, a more cooperative relationship with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, an improved economy, and what appeared to be significant steps toward peace in Vietnam.

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By 1980 the apparent inability of the Carter administration to control the economic situation, coupled with a perception of U.S. impotence abroad (exemplified by the Iranian seizure of U.S. hostages), favored a Republican resurgence. Reagan easily won the party's presidential nomination and went on to overwhelm Carter, taking 489 electoral votes (against Carter's 49) and 51 percent of the popular vote. At the same time, the Republicans won 12 additional seats in the U.S. Senate, taking control of that body for the first time in 25 years.

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Republican Elephant

This symbol of the party was born in the imagination of cartoonist Thomas Nast and first appeared in Harper’s Weekly on November 7, 1874. An 1860 issue of Railsplitter and an 1872 cartoon in Harper’s Weekly connected elephants with Republicans, but it was Nast who provided the party with its symbol.

Oddly, two unconnected events led to the birth of the Republican Elephant. James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald raised the cry of “Caesarism” in connection with the possibility of a third term try for President Ulysses S. Grant. The issue was taken up by the Democratic politicians in 1874, halfway through Grant’s second term and just before the midterm elections, and helped disaffect Republican voters.

While the illustrated journals were depicting Grant wearing a crown, the Herald involved itself in another circulation-builder in an entirely different, nonpolitical area. This was the Central Park Menagerie Scare of 1874, a delightful hoax perpetrated by the Herald. They ran a story, totally untrue, that the animals in the zoo had broken loose and were roaming the wilds of New York’s Central Park in search of prey.

Cartoonist Thomas Nast took the two examples of the Herald enterprise and put them together in a cartoon for Harper’s Weekly. He showed an ass (symbolizing the Herald) wearing a lion’s skin (the scary prospect of Caesarism) frightening away the animals in the forest (Central Park). The caption quoted a familiar fable: “An ass having put on a lion’s skin roamed about in the forest and amused himself by frightening all the foolish animals he met within his wanderings.”

One of the foolish animals in the cartoon was an elephant, representing the Republican vote – not the party, the Republican vote – which was being frightened away from its normal ties by the phony scare of Caesarism. In a subsequent cartoon on November 21, 1874, after the election in which the Republicans did badly, Nast followed up the idea by showing the elephant in a trap, illustrating the way the Republican vote had been decoyed from its normal allegiance. Other cartoonists picked up the symbol, and the elephant soon ceased to be the vote and became the party itself: the jackass, now referred to as the donkey, made a natural transition from representing the Herald to representing the Democratic party that had frightened the elephant.

From William Safire’s New Language of Politics, Revised edition, Collier Books, New York, 1972

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The Republican Party and the Civil War

The Republican Party is usually associated with the Civil War caused by the election of the republican Abraham Lincoln suggesting that Lincoln was a radical abolitionist. In fact, Lincoln was a moderate figure in the Republican Party in those days. In the election of 1864, radical republicans like Benjamin F. Wade, Henry W. Davis, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Edwin M. Stanton were more in favor of a punitive policy towards the South. The moderate republicans under Lincoln were, however, inclined to leniency. The moderate republicans gained the upper hand in the party after the assassination of Lincoln when his successor Andrew Johnson implemented a moderate program of reconstruction.

In the election of 1868, the victory of Ulysses S. Grant paved the way for the dominion of the radical republicans. However, the excesses of the radical republicans and the open scandals of the administration created a new split in the party and gave rise to the formation of the Liberal Republican Party. However, in the election of 1872, its candidate, Horace Greeley who was also supported by the Democrats, was not popular enough to defeat Grant, and corruption became even more widespread.

[A quote from the article written by Martin Hahn published on http://en.articlesgratuits.com]