The Straight Line from the Creation of the Republican Party and Lincoln and the Civil War, to Today's Chasm between Progressives and Conservatives

Our heartfelt condolences go out to the British people, and especially Londoners, who suffered yet another islamic terrorist qttack on Saturday evening. • • • THIS IS A WEEK OF HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE. • LINCOLN'S FIRST REPUBLICAN CONVENTION. On May 29th, 1856, Abraham Lincoln helped to organize the new Republican Party of Illinois. At the first Republican convention, Lincoln got 110 votes for the vice-presidential nomination, thereby gaining national attention, although not winningthe VP slot. He campaigned in Illinois for the Republican presidential candidate, John C. Frémont and became nationally sought after as a great speaker. • • • THE WHIG PARTY GIVES UP. The Whig Party was formally organized in 1834, as a loose coalition under Senator Henry Clay united in their opposition to what party members viewed as the executive tyranny of Democrat President “King Andrew” Jackson. They borrowed the name Whig from the British Whig Party opposed to royal prerogatives to emphasize their opposition to the imperial and corrupt Jacksonian Democrat Party. From the early 1830s into the mid-1850s, the Whigs and the Democrats were the nation's two major parties. As late as 1853, a Whig, Millard Fillmore of New York, was President. But two years later, by the fall of 1855, the Whig party was effectively extinct. • Yet during the party’s brief life, it managed to win support from diverse economic groups in all sections and to hold its own in presidential elections. Much of this success was due to the leadership of Kentucky's Henry Clay (1777-1852), who played a central role in national politics for more than forty years. He was Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams, Speaker of the House of Representatives longer than anyone else in the 19th century, and the most influential member of the Senate during its golden age. Although unable to unite behind a single candidate in 1836, thus permitting Jackson’s handpicked successor Martin Van Buren to obtain an electoral majority, the Whigs won a popular vote for their candidate that was close to the popular tally for the Democrats. And in 1840 and 1848, the Whigs captured the White House. Their only loss in a presidential election during the 1840s occurred in 1844 when Clay lost by a hair to the Democrat James K. Polk, who had greater appeal to voters favoring the expansion both of territory and slavery. But in 1852, as slavery’s expansion became the great issue of American politics, the Whigs suffered a drastic decline in popularity as abolitionists became more insistent on ending slavery immediately. By 1854 the Whigs were finished, no longer able to keep the support of ‘cotton Whigs,’ who favored slavery and joined the Democrat Party, or of ‘conscience Whigs,’ who were abolitionists opposed to slavery who helped form the new Republican Party. Historians have said many things about the Whigs, but all agree that they were united in their antagonism to Jackson’s war on the Second Bank of the United States and his high-handed measures in waging that war and ignoring Supreme Court decisions, the Constitution, and Indian rights embodied in federal treaties. And, for all Clay’s political pragmatism and his constant pursuit of the presidency, he inspired the young congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, and many others, including free Blacks and abolitionists, who regarded the Whigs as the antislavery party, and overwhelmingly preferred it to the ardently pro-slavery Democrats. The Whigs appealed to what modern historians call ethnocultural groups : evangelical as opposed to liturgical Protestants; moralists and abstainers; and, people unhappy with the brutal Jacksonian Democrats' treatment of blacks and Native Americans. • • • THE BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. In some states, Whig leaders seemed so critical of political parties that they appeared to be religious rather than party leaders. But, their unique blend of moral values and social philosophies gave the Whigs a special appeal to many Americans. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 divided the country at the 36° 30' parallel between the pro-slavery, agrarian South and the anti-slavery, industrial North, creating an uneasy peace that lasted for 30 years. This peace was shattered in 1854 by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, under which settlers would decide if their state would be free or slave. Northern leaders such as Horace Greeley, Salmon Chase and Charles Sumner could not sit back and watch the flood of pro-slavery settlers cross the parallel. A new party was needed. And, as the Whig Party was struggling to cope with what had become the great issue of American politics -- the expansion of slavery -- the Republican Party, as well as attracting many anti-slavery Democrats, became the party of so many Whigs that it effectively killed the Whig Party. • The first statewide convention that formed a platform and nominated candidates under the name "Republican" was held near Jackson, Michigan, on July 6, 1854. It declared their new party opposed to the expansion of slavery into new territories and selected a statewide slate of candidates. More than 10,000 people turned out for the Jackson mass meeting "Under the Oaks." • The Republican Party name was christened in an editorial written by New York newspaper magnate Horace Greeley, who printed in June 1854 the suggestion for the new party's name : "We should not care much whether those thus united (against slavery) were designated 'Whig,' 'Free Democrat' or something else; though we think some simple name like 'Republican' would more fitly designate those who had united to restore the Union to its true mission of champion and promulgator of Liberty rather than propagandist of slavery." It wasn't until the 1880s that the Grand Old Party, or GOP, became the unofficial name of the Republican Party. • The elections of 1854 saw the Republicans take Michigan and make advances in many states, and by 1855, the Republican Party controlled a majority in the House of Representatives. This led to the first organizing convention in Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856. The Party's first nominating convention, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 1856, announced the birth of the Republican Party as a unified political force. • As the Philadelphia convention approached, things were coming to a head in the Union. On the floor of the Senate, Democratic representatives Preston Brooks and Lawrence Keitt brutally attacked Charles Sumner with a cane after Sumner gave a passionate anti-slavery speech. Both representatives resigned from Congress with severe indignation after being tossed out of the Chamber, but were returned to Congress by South Carolina voters the next year. Sumner was not able to return to Congress for four years after the attack. Brooks was heard boasting "Next time I will have to kill him," as he left the Senate floor after the attack. On the same day as the attack in Congress, news reached Washington of an armed attack in Lawrence, Kansas, where, as a direct outgrowth of the "settler sovereignty" of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, an armed band of men from Missouri and Nebraska sacked the town of Lawrence and arrested the leaders of the free state. The anti-abolitionist Democrats had made it clear that "settler sovereignty" meant pro-slavery. Labeled only as "ruffians" by Southern politicians, they were denounced by Horace Greeley as plots of the pro-slavery Democrat South : "Failing to silence the North by threats....the South now resorts to actual violence." • • • THE LOOMING CIVIL WAR AND THE ELECTION OF LINCOLN. The first rumblings of the Civil War had begun. The 1856 election held the future of the Union in its grasp. In the general election, Democrat candidate James Buchanan maintained that slavery was an issue to be decided by individual states and territories, while his Republican challenger, John Fremont, an explorer and US Senator from California, asserted that the federal government should ban slavery in all US territories. Buchanan received 174 electoral votes, while Fremont, the first-ever Republican presidential candidate, received 114 votes. Democrat James Buchanan, America’s 15th President, in his term from 1857 to 1861, saw seven Southern states secede from the Union and the nation teeter on the brink of civil war. A Pennsylvania native, Buchanan's political career included serving in both the House and Seante, as well as being a foreign diplomat and US Secretary of State. Buchanan, a Democrat who was morally opposed to slavery, believed, incorrectly, as did most Democrats, that slavery was protected by the US Constitution. As President, he tried to maintain peace between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the government, but failed. In 1860, after Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was elected to succeed Buchanan but before Linclon's inauguration, South Carolina seceded and the Confederacy was soon established. In April 1861, a month after Buchanan left office, the American Civil War (1861-1865) began. • • • PRESIDENT LINCOLN AND THE CIVIL WAR. Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States over a deeply divided Democratic Party, becoming the first Republican to win the presidency. Lincoln received only 40% of the popular vote but handily defeated the three other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, the US Senator for Illinois who had been Lincoln's opponent in the famous Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Lincoln, a Kentucky-born lawyer and former Whig representative to Congress, had first gained national prominence during his campaign against Douglas for an Illinois US Senate seat in 1858. The senatorial campaign featured the remarkable series of public encounters on the slavery issue, known as the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, in which Lincoln argued against the spread of slavery, while Douglas maintained that each territory should have the right to decide whether it would become free or slave. Lincoln lost the Senate race, but his campaign brought national attention to the young Republican Party. In 1860, Lincoln won the party’s presidential nomination. In the November 1860 election, Lincoln again faced Douglas, who represented the Northern faction of a heavily divided Democratic Party, as well as Breckinridge and Bell. The announcement of Lincoln’s victory signaled the secession of the Southern states, which since the beginning of 1860 had been publicly threatening secession if the Republicans gained the White House. By the time of Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861, seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established, with Jefferson Davis as its elected president. One month later, the American Civil War began when Confederate forces under General P.G.T. Beauregard opened fire on Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. In 1863, as the tide turned against the Confederacy, Lincoln emancipated the slaves and in 1864 won reelection. In April 1865, he was assassinated by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. The attack came only five days after the American Civil War effectively ended with the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. For preserving the Union and bringing an end to slavery, and for his unique character and powerful oratory, Lincoln is hailed as one of the greatest American presidents. • • • THE RISE OF THE GOP AND THE CIVIL WAR HAVE SIGNIFICANCE TODAY. Why?? Because America -- the Union -- is engaged in a Second Civil Way, although thus far without armed confrontation. But, the confrontation is there and it is dividing America in the same way the slavery issue did. While in 2017 slavery is not the issue, although Progressive Democrats try to keep it front and center by rabble-rousing against fake GOP positions on race to keep Black Americans on the Progressive bandwagon. • Today, the real issue is the Constitution. Republicans want to continue to follow its admonition to keep the Republic a society of free men and women whose individual liberties and resources are used by them, not the government, to build and improve life for all American citizens. This position, held by all Americans until President Wilson called for a globalist, collective view of government as the know-all, be-all provider for citizens who are not to be trusted to take care of themselves or their country. This theme was taken up systematically in the 1930s with the rise of Progressive President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal cynically put in place to assure the continued power position of his Democrat Party. Just as the Jacksonian Democrats had demanded the right to own slaves and spread slavery to new US territories, FDR demanded the right to give Black Americans welfare benefits paid for by other Americans. FDR had the perfect vehicle in the Great Depression and most American citizens were lulled into believing that they "owed" Black and other welfare recipients their tax dollars. • That may sound hard, but it is the brutal truth, and it has kept Black Americans clinging to the Democrat Party ever since. And, the "Great Recession" of 2008 is the latest example of President Obama's Progressive Democrat effort to "buy" welfare recipients, especially Black Americans, who now are the largest group consistently voting overwhelmingly Democrat. • Democrat globalists have deliberately chosen the title "Progressive" to avoid highlighting their political philosophy -- Socialism -- a form of Collectivism, in which political and economic control is held by the government, not individuals, and the ultimate goal is the elimination of private property and individual liberties and freedom. Individualism, or Conservativism, places political and economic control in the hands of each individual acting freely on his or her own, making their own choices, and interacting with the rest of the group as individuals to support and improve the society they live in. • • • DEAR READERS, this is today's Second Civil War. It permeates every aspect of our lives. It is responsible for the chasm that exists between American Conservatives and Progressives, and for the chasm between President Trump's world view and the world view of most European governments and leaders. This chasm will not disappear on its own. It is the fundamental political and economic question of our time. The question divides those who seek to appease migrating islamic terrorists and those who want to prevent their entry into Western society -- producing conservative offshoot parties all over Europe who would be Trump suporters if they were American. The question divides Americans along lines that often blur party affiliation -- moderate Democrats and Independents are crossing over to vote Republican, while #Never Trump Republicans are in all-out war against the President elected by their own GOP. This universal political realignment occurred in the 1850s as anti-slavery Democrats migrated first to the Whigs and then to the new Republican Party, and as northerners who favored "settler choice" on the slavery issue migrated toward the Democrat Party. Lincoln -- who knew that the Union could only be saved if slavery were abolished completely -- was despised by those who wanted to compromise the slavery issue ad nauseum. Trump knows that America and its Constitution can only be saved if Progressivism is defeated. It is a Second Civil War. It is thus far bloodless if we do not count scuffles during marches and political rally confrontations. It has not yet destroyed the Western Alliance if we disregard Europe's hateful words for a President Trump they detest because of his refusal to lie down and die before the terrorist jihad. But, the signs are growing, as they were in America in the 1850s, that peaceful resolution of the question is becoming less and less possible. • Tomorrow, we will look at these signs.