The Birth of the Republican Party

1. Main Idea • Essential Question The Birth of the Republican Party What factors contributed to the growth of the Republican Party?

2. Objectives

3. New Political Parties Emerge • Slavery, Kansas-Nebraska Act, and Fugitive Slave Act deeply divide Democratic and Whig Parties, weakening their influence over national politics • Both parties seek compromise, lack solutions • Whig party nominates Winfield Scott for 1852 Presidential Election, a Northern candidate who praised the Compromise of 1850, but disliked the Fugitive Slave Act. Division costs Whigs the election of 1852 • Northern Whigs liked Scott but hated the party platform of supporting slavery. Southern Whigs liked the platform but hated Scott. • Franklin Pierce –

4. Pierce the Expansionist • The victory of the Mexican War stimulated the spirit of Manifest Destiny.  Americans were looking ahead to possible canal routes and to the islands near them, notably Spain’s Cuba • Cuba was prized by Southerners who saw it as the most desirable slave territory available.  They felt future states arising from it would eventually restore the balance in the Senate. • President Polk had offered to buy from Spain, but Spain refused. Two missions full of Southern men descended upon Cuba, with the hopes of taking it over. • Spanish officials in Cuba seized an American ship, the Black Warrior, in 1854.  President Pierce wanted to provoke a war with Spain over Cuba. • Ostend Manifesto-

5. Nativism – • Influx of Irish and German immigrants into Northern cities caused concern, despite that immigrants often only had access to the worst paying jobs in society • Protestants fear influence of Catholic Pope in US affairs • Know-Nothing Party – Know-Nothing Party

6. Free-Soil Party • The Liberty Party was the first true abolitionist party, but did not gain much traction in their one and only election (1848) • Free-Soil Party – • Nominated ex-President Martin Van Buren in 1848, received about 10% of the popular vote • Free-Soilers thought a conspiracy existed on behalf of spreading “diabolical slave power” • Abolitionists claimed it was a party more interested in keeping soil free than setting men free

7. The Republican Party • Discontented Northern Whigs, Anti-Slavery Democrats and fringe Free-Soilers gathered together to make a political party that was uncompromising on the issue of slavery • Republican Party – • Republicans were able to draw support from diverse groups, becoming an immediate player in elections • Violence in Kansas and in the Senate causes many people to drift to Republican Party, hoping to bring strong moral leadership to Washington • Horace Greeley –

8. Growth of Republican Party

9. The 1856 Election • Northerners were furious over the situation in Bleeding Kansas and the canning of Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate • Republicans use these issues to rally Northern support for the election of 1856 while other parties implode over slavery • John C. Fremont – • The South most likely would have seceded in the case of a Fremont victory • Demonstrated that the Republican Party was the new dominant force in the North • James Buchanan –

10. Major Political Parties 1850-1860