Chapter I: Preface

Early in February, 1900, the writer delivered an address before the Stamina Republican League of Cincinnati on "The Origin and Rise of the Republican Party." The interest in the subject shown by the audience and the many words of approbation led to a deeper consideration of the history of the Party, and the address was repeated on a more elaborate plan before many other organizations in Cincinnati and vicinity.

It soon became apparent that the great majority of every audience had very vague recollections of the tragic events which led to the organization of the Party, and of its early history, owing perhaps to the fact that they belonged to a generation that had followed the enactment of those events. It was also clear that those who had lived in the momentous decade before the Civil War were deeply interested and stirred by a new recital of the history of that period, and thus it was suggested that a History of the Republican Party might prove of interest and value.

Like the place of Homer's birth that of the Republican Party is in dispute, but it is believed that the facts herein narrated are supported by the weight of evidence.

It is hoped that this work does not display so much partisanship as to make it uninteresting to members of other political parties in the United States.

GEO. W. PLATT. Cincinnati, February, 1904.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER. PAGE
I. Formative Causes .......................................... 5
II. Ancient and Modern Slavery ................................ 11
III. Beginning of Slavery in the United States ................. 22
IV. The Early Federal Government .............................. 28
V. The Missouri Compromise ................................... 42
VI. The Abolitionists ......................................... 51
VII. Compromise of 1850 ........................................ 59
VIII. Birth of the Republican Party ............................. 70
IX. First Republican National Convention ...................... 86
X. The Lincoln-Douglas Debates ............................... 101
XI. Lincoln ................................................... 112
XII. Reconstruction and the National Debt ...................... 135
XIII. Grant ..................................................... 148
XIV. Hayes ..................................................... 170
XV. Garfield and Arthur ....................................... 185
XVI. Blaine .................................................... 201
XVII. Harrison .................................................. 213
XVIII. Cleveland's Second Term ................................... 230
XIX. McKinley .................................................. 244
XX. Roosevelt ................................................. 285

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE 1. Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley ...................... Frontispiece 2. White House ........................................... facing 28 3. Capitol ............................................... " 44 4. Alvan E. Bovay ........................................ " 76 5. Schoolhouse at Ripon, Wis ............................. " 84 6. John C. Fremont ....................................... " 92 7. Wm. H. Seward ......................................... " 100 8. Lincoln's First Inauguration .......................... " 124 9. _New York Herald_, April 15, 1865 ..................... " 132 10. Andrew Johnson ........................................ " 140 11. Ulysses S. Grant ...................................... " 148 12. Rutherford B. Hayes ................................... " 180 13. Chester A. Arthur ..................................... " 196 14. James G. Blaine ....................................... " 204 15. Benjamin Harrison ..................................... " 213 16. John Sherman .......................................... " 220 17. Inauguration of Wm. McKinley, March, 1897, ............ " 244 18. Thos. B. Reed ......................................... " 252 19. Second Inauguration of McKinley ....................... " 260 20. Marcus A. Hanna ....................................... " 276 21. Theodore Roosevelt .................................... " 285

A HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.