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141-490: It was dominated by the new Republican Party , which claimed success in saving the Union, abolishing slavery and enfranchising the freedmen , while adopting many Whig -style modernization programs such as national banks , railroads, high tariffs, homesteads , social spending (such as on greater Civil War veteran pension funding), and aid to land grant colleges . While most elections from 1876 through 1892 were extremely close,

282-525: A " Liberal Republican " Party in 1872, only to have it smashed by Grant's reelection. By the mid-1870s it was clear that Confederate nationalism was dead; all but the most ardent Republican 'Stalwarts' agreed that the southern Republican coalition of African-American freedmen, scalawags and carpetbaggers was helpless and hopeless. In 1874 the Democrats won big majorities in Congress, with economic depression

423-624: A "worse tyrant and more inhuman butcher than has existed since the days of Nero ... The man who votes for Lincoln now is a traitor and murderer ... And if he is elected to misgovern for another four years, we trust some bold hand will pierce his heart with dagger point for the public good". The Copperheads sometimes talked of violent resistance and, in some cases, started to organize. However, they never actually made an organized attack. As war opponents, Copperheads were suspected of disloyalty, and their leaders were sometimes arrested and held for months in military prisons without trial. One famous example

564-617: A Federal investigation thwarted his " Northwest Conspiracy ". Despite this Copperhead setback, tensions remained high. The Charleston Riot took place in Illinois in March 1864. Indiana Republicans then used the sensational revelation of an antiwar Copperhead conspiracy by elements of the Sons of Liberty to discredit Democrats in the 1864 House elections . The military trial of Lambdin P. Milligan and other Sons of Liberty revealed plans to set free

705-460: A bit too far. There was some real fire under that smokescreen of Republican propaganda". Jennifer Weber's Copperheads: The Rise and Fall of Lincoln's Opponents in the North (2006) agrees more with Gray and Milton than with Klement. She argues that first, Northern antiwar sentiment was strong, so strong that Peace Democrats came close to seizing control of their party in mid-1864. Second, she shows

846-484: A despot and dunce. Although he supported the war effort in 1861, he blamed abolitionists for prolonging the war and denounced the government as increasingly despotic. By 1864, he was calling for peace at any price. John Mullaly 's Metropolitan Record was the official Catholic newspaper in New York City. Reflecting Irish American opinion, it supported the war until 1863 before becoming a Copperhead organ. In

987-432: A hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to "Black Republicans." ... But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be

1128-498: A huge national debt , homestead laws , railroads and aid to education and agriculture . The Republicans denounced the peace-oriented Democrats as disloyal Copperheads and won enough War Democrats to maintain their majority in 1862. In 1864, they formed a coalition with many War Democrats as the National Union Party . Lincoln chose Democrat Andrew Johnson as his running mate and was easily re-elected. During

1269-585: A largely Copperhead platform and selected Ohio Representative George Pendleton , a Peace Democrat, as the vice-presidential candidate. However, it chose a pro-war presidential candidate, General George B. McClellan . The contradiction severely weakened the party's chances to defeat Lincoln. The values of the Copperheads reflected the Jacksonian democracy of an earlier agrarian society. The Copperhead movement attracted Southerners who had settled north of

1410-581: A mail bag from a state now in the Confederacy: A day or two since, when one of the mail-bags coming from the South by way of Alexandria, was emptied in the court-yard of the Post-office, a box fell out and was broken open, – from which two copperheads, one four and a half and the other three feet long, crawled out. The larger one was benumbed and easily killed; the other was very lively and venomous and

1551-591: A major issue between the largely wet Democrats and the largely dry Republicans – although there was a pro-Prohibition faction within the Democratic Party and an anti-Prohibition faction within the Republican Party. The Republican Party emerged from the great political realignment of the mid-1850s. William Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began before the Whig party demise, and

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1692-520: A major issue between the wet Democrats and the dry GOP. The election of William McKinley in 1896 marked a resurgence of Republican dominance and was a realigning election . The GOP now had a decisive advantage nationwide and in the industrial states; the Democrats were left with the Solid South and mixed opportunities elsewhere. The large cities had Republican or Democratic machines. With fewer competitive states, turnout fell steadily. Blacks in

1833-538: A major issue. People asked how much longer the Republicans could use the Army to impose control in the South. Rutherford Hayes became president after a highly controversial electoral count, demonstrating that the corruption of Southern politics threatened the legitimacy of the presidency itself. After Hayes removed the last federal troops in 1877, the Republican Party in the South sank into oblivion, kept alive only by

1974-418: A murderer!" New England Yankees, who dominated that region and much of upstate New York and the upper Midwest , were the strongest supporters of the new party. This was especially true for the pietistic Congregationalists and Presbyterians among them and, during the war, many Methodists and Scandinavian Lutherans . The Quakers were a small, tight-knit group that was heavily Republican. By contrast,

2115-629: A new income tax, a national banking system, paper money ("Greenbacks") and enough taxes and loans to pay for the war. Many conservative Democrats became War Democrats who had a deep belief in American nationalism and supported the war. When Lincoln added the abolition of slavery as a war goal, the Peace Democrats were energized and carried numerous state races, especially in Connecticut, Indiana and Illinois. Democrat Horatio Seymour

2256-554: A presidential election. The final nail in the Whig coffin was the Kansas–Nebraska Act , passed by Democrats in 1854. It was also the spark that began the Republican Party, which would take in both Whigs and Free Soilers and create an anti-slavery party that the Whigs had always resisted becoming. The Act opened Kansas Territory and Nebraska Territory to slavery and future admission as slave states , thus implicitly repealing

2397-433: A reformer, won two states. Through the primaries, Senator La Follette won a total of 36 delegates; President Taft won 48 delegates; and Roosevelt won 278 delegates. However 36 more conservative states did not hold primaries, but instead selected delegates via state conventions. For years Roosevelt had tried to attract Southern white Democrats to the Republican Party, and he tried to win delegates there in 1912. However Taft had

2538-402: A role but it was less important at first. The Know-Nothing party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak leadership was unable to solidify its organization, and the Republicans picked it apart. Nativism was so powerful that the Republicans could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and turn voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the good farm lands wherever slavery

2679-675: A series of trials in 1864. Copperheadism was a highly contentious grassroots movement. It had its strongest base just north of the Ohio River and in some urban ethnic wards. In the State of Ohio, perhaps in contrast with Indiana and Illinois, the counties that had Peace Democrat majorities tended not to be along the Ohio River, but more in the central and northwestern portions of the state. Historians such as Wood Gray , Jennifer Weber and Kenneth M. Stampp have argued that it represented

2820-491: A strong anti- Soviet Union foreign policy. Reagan's influence upon the party persisted into the 21st century. In 2016, businessman and media personality Donald Trump became the party's nominee for president, won the presidency, and shifted the party further to the right. Since Trump's nomination in 2016, the party is seen to be split between the Trumpist faction, which ranges from far-right nationalists to populists , and

2961-547: A third term, but he was outmaneuvered by Taft and lost the nomination. The 1912 Republican National Convention turned a personal feud into an ideological split in the GOP. Politically liberal states for the first time were holding Republican primaries . Roosevelt overwhelmingly won the primaries—winning 9 out of 12 states (8 by landslide margins). Taft won only the state of Massachusetts (by a small margin); he even lost his home state of Ohio to Roosevelt. Senator Robert M. La Follette ,

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3102-486: A third-party presidential candidate calling for social reforms . After 1912, many Roosevelt supporters left the Republican Party, and the party underwent an ideological shift to the right. The GOP lost its congressional majorities during the Great Depression (1929–1940); under President Franklin D. Roosevelt , the Democrats formed a winning New Deal coalition that was dominant from 1932 through 1964. After

3243-428: A traditionalistic element alarmed at the rapid modernization of society sponsored by the Republican Party and that it looked back to Jacksonian democracy for inspiration. Weber argues that the Copperheads damaged the Union war effort by opposing conscription , encouraging desertion , and forming conspiracies. Still, other historians say that the draft was already in disrepute and that the Republicans greatly exaggerated

3384-604: A way of life that he thought was being destroyed by the current rulers of his country. His bold protests against these dangerous trends made him the idol of the Democracy of the Wabash Valley . Two central questions have run through the historiography of the Copperheads: "How serious a threat did they pose to the Union war effort and hence to the nation's survival?" and "To what extent and with what justification did

3525-648: The 1864 presidential election , when they were used to discredit the leading Democratic candidates. Copperhead support increased when Union armies did poorly and decreased when they won great victories. After the fall of Atlanta in September 1864, Union military success seemed assured, and Copperheadism collapsed. A possible origin of the name came from a New York Times newspaper account in April 1861 that stated that when postal officers in Washington, D.C., opened

3666-830: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 , the Voting Rights Act of 1965 , and the Southern strategy , the party's core base shifted with the Southern states becoming more reliably Republican in presidential politics and the Northeastern states becoming more reliably Democratic. White voters increasingly identified with the Republican Party after the 1960s. Following the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade ,

3807-533: The Civil War also of former black slaves. The party had very little support from white Southerners at the time, who predominantly backed the Democratic Party in the Solid South , and from Irish and German Catholics, who made up a major Democratic voting block. While both parties adopted pro-business policies in the 19th century, the early GOP was distinguished by its support for the national banking system ,

3948-563: The Colored Orphan Asylum , an orphanage for 233 black children. On August 19, 1864, John Mullaly was arrested for inciting resistance to the draft. Even in an era of extremely partisan journalism, Copperhead newspapers were remarkable for their angry rhetoric. Wisconsin newspaper editor Marcus M. Pomeroy of the La Crosse Democrat referred to Lincoln as "Fungus from the corrupt womb of bigotry and fanaticism" and

4089-484: The Emancipation Proclamation was designed primarily to destroy the economic base of the 'Slave Power'. It initially alienated many northern Democrats and even moderate Republicans. They were reluctant to support a war for the benefit of what they considered an inferior race. The Democrats made significant gains in the 1862 midterm elections, but the Republicans remained in control with the support of

4230-634: The Knights of the Golden Circle . Formed in Ohio in the 1850s, it became politicized in 1861. It reorganized as the Order of American Knights in 1863 and again in early 1864 as the Order of the Sons of Liberty, with Vallandigham as its commander. One leader, Harrison H. Dodd , advocated the violent overthrow of the governments of Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri in 1864. Democratic Party leaders and

4371-512: The Ohio River valley. Religious lines were sharply drawn. Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Scandinavian Lutherans and other pietists in the North were tightly linked to the Republicans. In sharp contrast, liturgical groups, especially the Catholics, Episcopalians, and German Lutherans, looked to the Democratic Party for protection from pietistic moralism and prohibition . While both parties cut across economic class structures,

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4512-575: The Ohio River , and the poor and merchants who had lost profitable Southern trade. They were most numerous in border areas, including southern parts of Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana (in Missouri, comparable groups were avowed Confederates). The movement had scattered bases of support outside the lower Midwest. A Copperhead element in Connecticut dominated the Democratic Party there. The Copperhead coalition included many Irish American Catholics in eastern cities, mill towns and mining camps (especially in

4653-678: The Panic of 1893 , which also undercut the appeal of the loosely organized Populist coalitions in the south and west. A stunning Republican triumph in 1894 nearly wiped out the Democratic Party north of the Mason–Dixon line. In the 1896 election William Jennings Bryan and the radical silverites seized control of the Democratic Party, denounced their own president, and called for a return to Jeffersonian agrarianism (see Jeffersonian democracy ). Bryan, in his Cross of Gold speech , talked about workers and farmers crucified by big business, evil bankers and

4794-1012: The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution —which banned slavery in the United States—passed the Senate in 1864 and the House in 1865; it was ratified in December 1865. In 1865, the Confederacy surrendered, ending the Civil War. Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865 ; following his death, Andrew Johnson took office as President of the United States. During the post-Civil War Reconstruction era , there were major disagreements on

4935-537: The U.S. House of Representatives before 1935 and all of the African Americans who served in the Senate before 1979, were Republicans. Frederick Douglass after the Civil War and Booker T. Washington in the early 20th century were prominent Republican spokesmen. Social pressure eventually forced most Scalawags to join the conservative/Democratic Redeemer coalition. A minority persisted and, starting in

5076-581: The anti-Trump faction , which consists of center-right conservatives, moderate centrists , as well as some traditional conservatives . Since the 1990s, the party's support has chiefly come from the South, the Great Plains , the Mountain States , and rural areas in the North. As of 2016, it supports free market economics , cultural conservatism , and originalism in constitutional jurisprudence . There have been 19 Republican presidents,

5217-529: The eastern copperhead ( Agkistrodon contortrix ), a species of venomous snake. Those Democrats embraced the moniker, reinterpreting the copper "head" as the likeness of Liberty, which they cut from Liberty Head large cent coins and proudly wore as badges. By contrast, Democratic supporters of the war were called War Democrats . Notable Copperheads included two Democratic Congressmen from Ohio: Reps. Clement L. Vallandigham and Alexander Long . Republican prosecutors accused some prominent Copperheads of treason in

5358-414: The economy . McKinley relied heavily on industry officials and the middle classes for his support and cemented the Republicans as the party of business. This emphasis on business was in part reversed by Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential successor after McKinley's assassination in 1901, who engaged in trust-busting . Theodore Roosevelt, who became president in 1901, had the most dynamic personality of

5499-694: The gold standard , railroads , and high tariffs . The party opposed the expansion of slavery before 1861 and led the fight to destroy the Confederate States of America (1861–1865). While the Republican Party had almost no presence in the Southern United States at its inception, it was very successful in the Northern United States , where by 1858 it had enlisted former Whigs and former Free Soil Democrats to form majorities in nearly every Northern state. With

5640-405: The severe economic depression 1893–1897 and the violent coal and railroad strikes of 1894. From 1860 to 1912, the Republicans took advantage of the association of the Democrats with "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion". Rum stood for the liquor interests and the tavernkeepers, in contrast to the GOP, which had a strong dry element. "Romanism" meant Roman Catholics , especially Irish Americans, who ran

5781-497: The " Solid South ". As with the preceding Second Party System era, the Third was characterized by intense voter interest, routinely high voter turnout, unflinching party loyalty, dependence on nominating conventions , hierarchical party organizations, and the systematic use of government jobs as patronage for party workers, known as the spoils system . Cities of 50,000 or more developed ward and citywide " bosses " who could depend on

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5922-545: The 1870s, formed the "tan" half of the "Black and Tan" Republican Party , a minority in every Southern state after 1877. This divided the party into two factions: the lily-white faction , which was practically all-white; and the biracial black-and-tan faction. In several Southern states, the "Lily Whites", who sought to recruit white Democrats to the Republican Party, attempted to purge the Black and Tan faction or at least to reduce its influence. Among such "Lily White" leaders in

6063-507: The 1876 election the South's former slave centers, which before the emancipation of Republican-voting African Americans was electorally dominated by wealthy slave owners who made up the southern base of Whigs, Know Nothings and Constitutional Unionists , began realigning into the Democratic Party due to the end of the now unpopular Reconstruction efforts; this new electoral base for the Democrats would finish realigning around 1904. The other realignments that ushered in this party system were

6204-455: The 1880s and 1890s, the Republicans struggled against the Democrats' efforts, winning several close elections and losing two to Grover Cleveland (in 1884 and 1892 ). Religious lines were sharply drawn. Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Scandinavian Lutherans and other pietists in the North were tightly linked to the GOP. In sharp contrast, liturgical groups , especially the Catholics, Episcopalians and German Lutherans, looked to

6345-625: The 1912 Republican nomination to Taft, he founded a new " Bull Moose " Progressive Party and ran as a third candidate. Although he outpolled Taft (who won only two states) in both the popular vote and the electoral college, the Republican split elected Woodrow Wilson and made pro-business conservatives the dominant force in the Republican Party. History of the United States Republican Party The Republican Party , also known as

6486-635: The Confederate prisoners held in the state. The culprits were sentenced to hang, but the Supreme Court intervened in Ex parte Milligan , saying they should have received civilian trials. Most Copperheads actively participated in politics. On May 1, 1863, former Congressman Vallandigham declared that the war was being fought not to save the Union but to free the blacks and enslave Southern whites. The U.S. Army then arrested him for declaring sympathy for

6627-548: The Constitution, regardless of democracy, states' rights, property or liberty. The Republicans played it safe in 1860, passing over better-known radicals in favor of a moderate border-state politician known to be an articulate advocate of liberty. Abraham Lincoln made no speeches, letting the party apparatus march the armies to the polls. Even if all three of Lincoln's opponents had formed a common ticket–quite impossible in view of their ideological differences–his 40 percent of

6768-492: The Democratic Party for protection from pietistic moralism, especially prohibition. Both parties cut across the class structure, with the Democrats more bottom-heavy. Cultural issues, especially prohibition and foreign language schools became important because of the sharp religious divisions in the electorate. In the North, about 50% of the voters were pietistic Protestants (Methodists, Scandinavian Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Disciples of Christ ) who believed

6909-612: The Democratic Party in every big city and whom the Republicans denounced for political corruption. "Rebellion" stood for the Democrats of the Confederacy , who tried to break the Union in 1861; and the Democrats in the North, called " Copperheads ", who sympathized with them. Demographic trends aided the Democrats, as the German and Irish Catholic immigrants were Democrats and outnumbered the British and Scandinavian Republicans. During

7050-458: The Democratic Party to give the Democrats a national majority in 1892 . Party loyalties were starting to weaken, as evidenced by the movement back and forth of the German vote and the sudden rise of the Populists. Army-style campaigns of necessity had to be supplemented by "campaigns of education", which focused more on the swing voters. Cleveland's second term was ruined by a major depression,

7191-399: The Democrats were supported more heavily by the lower economic tiers. Cultural issues, especially prohibition and public-funding for Catholic schools (as well as non-English schools of both Protestant and Catholic denominations) in parity with what were at the time Protestant-based, English-language public schools, became important because of the sharp religious divisions in the electorate. In

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7332-456: The Democrats, who had nominated reformer Grover Cleveland . Young Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge , leading reformers, refused to bolt—an action that preserved their leadership role in the GOP. As the Northern post-war economy boomed with industry, railroads, mines and fast-growing cities as well as prosperous agriculture, the Republicans took credit and promoted policies to keep

7473-412: The Democrats. Demographic trends aided the Democrats, as the German and Irish Catholic immigrants were mostly Democrats and outnumbered the British and Scandinavian Republicans. During the 1880s, elections were remarkably close. The Democrats usually lost, but won in 1884 and 1892 . In the 1894 Congressional elections , the GOP scored the biggest landslide in its history as Democrats were blamed for

7614-425: The Democrats. They won control of the House and formed " Redeemer " coalitions which recaptured control of each southern state, in some cases using threats and violence. Reconstruction came to an end when the contested election of 1876 was awarded by a special electoral commission to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes , who promised through the unofficial Compromise of 1877 to withdraw federal troops from control of

7755-686: The Fifth Column , which likewise condemned the traitorous Copperheads and praised Lincoln as a model defender of democracy. Gilbert R. Tredway , a professor of history, in his 1973 study Democratic Opposition to the Lincoln Administration in Indiana found most Indiana Democrats were loyal to the Union and desired national reunification. He documented Democratic counties in Indiana having outperformed Republican counties in recruiting soldiers. Tredway found that Copperhead sentiment

7896-567: The GOP (Grand Old Party), is one of the two major political parties in the United States . It is the second-oldest extant political party in the United States after its main political rival, the Democratic Party . In 1854, the Republican Party emerged to combat the expansion of slavery into western territories after the passing of the Kansas–Nebraska Act . The early Republican Party consisted of northern Protestants, factory workers, professionals, businessmen, prosperous farmers, and after

8037-587: The German-Americans, alarmed on the one hand by Bryan's inflation and on the other by prohibition . McKinley's overwhelming victory combined city and farm, Northeast and Midwest, businessmen and factory workers. He carried nearly every city of 50,000 population, while Bryan swept the rural South (which was off-limits to the Republicans) and Mountain states. McKinley's victory, ratified by an even more decisive reelection in 1900 , thus solidified one of

8178-503: The Lincoln administration and other Republican officials violate civil liberties to contain the perceived menace?" The first book-length scholarly treatment of the Copperheads was The Hidden Civil War: The Story of the Copperheads (1942) by Wood Gray . In it, Gray decried the "defeatism" of the Copperheads and argued that they deliberately served the Confederacy's war aims. Also in 1942, George Fort Milton published Abraham Lincoln and

8319-447: The North, about 50% of the voters were pietistic Protestants who believed the government should be used to reduce social sins, such as drinking. Liturgical churches constituted over a quarter of the vote and wanted the government to stay out of personal morality issues. Prohibition debates and referendums heated politics in most states over a period of decades, and national prohibition was finally passed in 1918 (repealed in 1932), serving as

8460-788: The Pennsylvania coal fields). They were also numerous in German Catholic areas of the Midwest , especially Wisconsin. Historian Kenneth Stampp has captured the Copperhead spirit in his depiction of Congressman Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana: There was an earthy quality in Voorhees, "the tall sycamore of the Wabash." On the stump his hot temper, passionate partisanship, and stirring eloquence made an irresistible appeal to

8601-489: The President as a tyrant destroying American republican values with despotic and arbitrary actions. Some Copperheads tried to persuade Union soldiers to desert. They talked of helping Confederate prisoners of war seize their camps and escape. They sometimes met with Confederate agents and took money. The Confederacy encouraged their activities whenever possible. The Copperheads had numerous important newspapers, but

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8742-426: The Progressive Era, North Carolina journalist William Garrott Brown tried to convince upscale white southerners of the wisdom of a strong early white Republican Party. He warned that a one party solid South system would negate democracy, encourage corruption, because the lack of prestige of the national level. Roosevelt was following his advice. However, in 1912, incumbent president Taft needed black Republican support in

8883-412: The Republican Party (it lost the presidency only in 1884 and 1892). Lincoln proved brilliantly successful in uniting the factions of his party to fight for the Union in the Civil War. However, he usually fought the Radical Republicans who demanded harsher measures. Led by Senator William P. Fessenden and Congressman Thaddeus Stevens , Congress took the lead in economic policy, bringing in high tariffs,

9024-434: The Republican Party opposed abortion in its party platform and grew its support among evangelicals . The Republican Party won five of the six presidential elections from 1968 to 1988. Two-term President Ronald Reagan , who held office from 1981 to 1989, was a transformative party leader. His conservative policies called for reduced social government spending and regulation , increased military spending, lower taxes , and

9165-413: The Republicans picked it apart. Nativism was so powerful that the Republicans could not avoid it, but they did minimize it and turn voter wrath against the threat that slave owners would buy up the good farm lands wherever slavery was allowed. The realignment was so 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

9306-422: The Republicans took credit, and swept away the issues and personalities of the Third Party System. The period 1896–1932 can be called the Fourth Party System. Most voting blocs continued unchanged, but others realigned themselves, giving a strong Republican dominance in the industrial Northeast, though the way was clear for the Progressive Era to impose a new way of thinking and a new agenda for politics. Alarmed at

9447-412: The Republicans were crusading for "Free Soil, Free Labor, Frémont and Victory." The main argument was that a ' Slave Power ' had seized control of the federal government and would try to make slavery legal in the territories, and perhaps even in the northern states. That would give rich slave owners the chance to go anywhere and buy up the best land, thus undercutting the wages of free labor and destroying

9588-566: The Senate . With the election of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868, the Radicals had control of Congress and the party attempted to build a solid Republican base in the South using the votes of Freedmen, Scalawags and Carpetbaggers , supported directly by United States Army detachments. Republicans all across the South formed local clubs called Union Leagues that effectively mobilized the voters, discussed issues, and when necessary, fought off Ku Klux Klan (KKK) attacks. Thousands died on both sides. Grant supported radical reconstruction programs in

9729-406: The South lost the vote in general elections, but still had a voice in the Republican National Convention. New immigrants were pouring in from Eastern and Southern Europe. The Progressive Era (or " Fourth Party System ") was dominated by Republican presidents, with the sole exception of Democrat Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921). The Republican Party had a progressive element, which supported unions and

9870-490: The South to defeat Roosevelt at the 1912 Republican national convention. Brown's campaign came to nothing, and he finally supported Woodrow Wilson in 1912. Copperhead (politics) In the 1860s, the Copperheads , also known as Peace Democrats , were a faction of the Democratic Party in the Union who opposed the American Civil War and wanted an immediate peace settlement with the Confederates . Republicans started labeling anti-war Democrats "Copperheads" after

10011-453: The South, the Fourteenth Amendment and equal civil and voting rights for the freedmen. Most of all he was the hero of the war veterans, who marched to his tune. The party had become so large that factionalism was inevitable; it was hastened by Grant's tolerance of high levels of corruption typified by the Whiskey Ring . In 1869, the Republican-controlled legislature in Wyoming Territory and its Republican governor John Allen Campbell made it

10152-436: The South, the Republicans won strong support from the freedmen (newly enfranchised African Americans), but the party was usually controlled by local whites (" scalawags ") and opportunistic Yankees (" carpetbaggers "). The race issue pulled the great majority of white southerners into the Democratic Party as Redeemers . The Democratic Party was dominated by conservative, pro-business Bourbon Democrats , who usually controlled

10293-499: The South, where it was roundly denounced in 1856–1860 as a divisive force that threatened civil war. The Republican Party absorbed many of the previous traditions of its members, who had come from an array of political factions, including Working Men , Locofoco Democrats , Free Soil Democrats, Free Soil Whigs, anti-slavery Know Nothings , Conscience Whigs , and Temperance Reformers of both parties. Many Democrats who joined were rewarded with governorships, or seats in

10434-404: The U.S. Senate, or House of Representatives. During the presidential campaign in 1860, at a time of escalating tension between the North and South, Abraham Lincoln addressed the harsh treatment of Republicans in the South in his famous Cooper Union speech : [W]hen you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us as reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant

10575-541: The Union Army became Republican in its makeup; probably a majority of Democrats who enlisted marched home Republican, including such key leaders as John Logan and Ben Butler . In the immediate aftermath of the war, there were several party subdivisions into which politicians might have been categorized: The Civil War and Reconstruction issues polarized the parties until the Compromise of 1877 finally ended

10716-554: The Unionist Party. Success on the battlefield (especially the fall of Atlanta ) significantly bolstered the Republicans in the election of 1864. The Democrats attempted to capitalize on negative reactions to the Emancipation, but by 1864 these had faded somewhat due to its success in undermining the South. Additionally, the Republicans made charges of treason against ' Copperheads ' a successful campaign issue. Increasingly

10857-408: The administration. In the Union, the Republican Party unanimously supported the war effort, finding officers, enlisted men, enlistment bonuses, aid to wives and widows, war supplies, bond purchases, and the enthusiasm that was critical to victory. The Democrats at first supported a war for Union, and in 1861 many Democratic politicians became colonels and generals. Announced by Lincoln in September 1862,

10998-552: The antiparty foundations of the movement by allying with major partisan leaders. These alliances and the factionalism they engendered discouraged nonpartisan supporters and undermined the third-party movement by the end of the nineteenth century. Many reformers and nonpartisans subsequently lent support to the Republican Party, which promised to attend to issues important to them, such as anti-slavery or prohibition. The overwhelming Republican victory, repeated in 1900, restored business confidence, began three decades of prosperity for which

11139-424: The best properties. It vigorously argued that free market labor was superior to slavery and was the very foundation of civic virtue and true republicanism ; this was the "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men" ideology. Without using the term " containment ", the Republican Party in the mid-1850s proposed a system of containing slavery. Historian James Oakes explains the strategy: The federal government would surround

11280-561: The central ideologies of twentieth-century American politics, pluralism . By campaigning tirelessly with over 500 speeches in 100 days, William Jennings Bryan seized control of the headlines in the 1896 election . It no longer mattered as much what the editorial page said—most newspapers opposed him—as long as his speeches made the front page. Financing likewise changed radically. Under the Second and Third Party Systems, parties financed their campaigns through patronage; now civil service reform

11421-449: The civil service . Upscale reformers who opposed the spoils system altogether were called " Mugwumps ". In 1884, Mugwumps rejected James G. Blaine as corrupt and helped elect Democrat Grover Cleveland , though most returned to the party by 1888. In the run-up to the 1884 Republican National Convention , Mugwumps organized their forces in the swing states, especially New York and Massachusetts. After failing to block Blaine, many bolted to

11562-478: The conspiracies for partisan reasons. Historians such as Gray and Weber argue that the Copperheads were inflexibly rooted in the past and were naive about the refusal of the Confederates to return to the Union. Convinced that the Republicans were ruining the traditional world they loved, they were obstructionist partisans. In turn, the Copperheads became a significant target of the National Union Party in

11703-544: The crumbs of federal patronage. It would be forty years before a Republican would win a former Confederate state in a presidential election. New issues emerged in the late 1880s, as Grover Cleveland and the Bourbon Democrats made the low tariff "for revenue only" a rallying cry for Democrats in the 1888 election , and the Republican Congress in 1890 legislated high tariffs and high spending. At

11844-503: The early 20th century, Arkansas ' Wallace Townsend was the party's gubernatorial nominee in 1916 and 1920 and its veteran national GOP committeeman. The factionalism flared up in 1928 and 1952. The final victory of its opponent the lily-white faction came in 1964. The party split into factions in the late 1870s. The Stalwarts , followers of Senator Roscoe Conkling , defended the spoils system . The Half-Breeds , who followed Senator James G. Blaine of Maine, pushed for reform of

11985-430: The economy and achieve equality by making everyone poor. McKinley promised prosperity through strong economic growth based on sound money and business confidence, and an abundance of high-paying industrial jobs. Farmers would benefit by selling to a rich home market. Every racial, ethnic and religious group would prosper, and the government would never be used by one group to attack another. In particular McKinley reassured

12126-598: The editors never allied. In Chicago, Wilbur F. Storey made the Chicago Times into Lincoln's most vituperative enemy. The New York Journal of Commerce , originally abolitionist, was sold to owners who became Copperheads, giving them an important voice in the largest city. A typical editor was Edward G. Roddy , owner of the Uniontown, Pennsylvania Genius of Liberty . He was an intensely partisan Democrat who saw African Americans as an inferior race and Lincoln as

12267-532: The election of its first president, Abraham Lincoln , in 1860, the party's success in guiding the Union to victory in the Civil War, and the party's role in the abolition of slavery, the Republican Party largely dominated the national political scene until 1932. In 1912, former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party after being rejected by the GOP and ran unsuccessfully as

12408-403: The electoral college, for the next 36 years. The Republican Party would heavily strengthen its electoral power due to an additional Republican realignment in 1896. The northern and western states were largely Republican, except for the closely balanced New York , Indiana , New Jersey , and Connecticut . After 1876, as a result of the end of Reconstruction, the Democratic Party took control of

12549-492: The enemy. He was court-martialed by the Army and sentenced to imprisonment, but Lincoln commuted the sentence to banishment behind Confederate lines. The Democrats nevertheless nominated him for governor of Ohio in 1863. He left the Confederacy and went to Canada, where he campaigned for governor but lost after an intense battle. He operated behind the scenes at the 1864 Democratic convention in Chicago. This convention adopted

12690-464: The era. Roosevelt had to contend with men like Senator Mark Hanna , whom he outmaneuvered to gain control of the convention in 1904 that renominated him and he won after promising to continue McKinley's policies. More difficult to handle was conservative House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon , who blocked most of Roosevelt's legislative goals in 1906–1908. Roosevelt achieved modest legislative gains in terms of railroad legislation and pure food laws . He

12831-535: The example of Mark Hanna, were active in the National Civic Federation , which promoted urban reforms and sought to avoid wasteful strikes. Protectionism was the ideological cement holding the Republican coalition together. High tariffs were used by Republicans to promise higher sales to business, higher wages to industrial workers, and higher demand for their crops to farmers. Progressive insurgents said it promoted monopoly. Democrats said it

12972-620: The fast growth going. The Democratic Party was largely controlled by pro-business Bourbon Democrats until 1896. The GOP supported big business generally, the gold standard , high tariffs and generous pensions for Union veterans. However, by 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers. The high McKinley Tariff of 1890 hurt

13113-478: The first jurisdiction to grant voting rights to women . In 1875, California swore in the first Hispanic governor, Republican Romualdo Pacheco . Many of the founders of the GOP joined the liberal movement , as did many powerful newspaper editors. They nominated Horace Greeley for president, who also gained the Democratic nomination, but the ticket was defeated in a landslide. The depression of 1873 energized

13254-559: The foundations of civil society. The Democratic response was to countercrusade in 1856, warning that the election of Republican candidate John C. Frémont would produce civil war. The outstanding leader of the Democrats was Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas ; he believed that the democratic process in each state or territory should settle the slavery question. When President James Buchanan tried to rig politics in Kansas Territory to approve slavery, Douglas broke with him, presaging

13395-405: The gold standard. With Bryan giving from five to 35 speeches a day throughout the Midwest , straw polls showed his crusade forging a lead in the critical Midwest. Republicans William McKinley and Mark Hanna then seized control of the situation; their countercrusade was a campaign of education making lavish use of new advertising techniques. McKinley warned that Bryan's bimetallism would wreck

13536-431: The government should be used to reduce social sins, such as drinking. Liturgical churches ( Roman Catholics , German Lutherans , and Episcopalians ) comprised over a quarter of the vote and wanted the government to stay out of the morality business. Prohibition debates and referendums heated up politics in most states over a period of decade as national prohibition was finally passed in 1919 (repealed in 1933), serving as

13677-446: The last three southern states. The region then became the Solid South , giving overwhelming majorities of its electoral votes and Congressional seats to the Democrats through 1964. Back in the late 19th century, when Senate Republicans pushed hard for civil rights, the GOP had a reputation for supporting minorities such as black people. Black people generally identified with the GOP until the 1930s. Every African American who served in

13818-645: The lead in forming state Republican Party tickets; apart from St. Louis and a few areas adjacent to free states, there were no efforts to organize the Party in the southern states. On September 20, 1854 a "People's Convention" was held in Aurora, IL at the First Congregational Church to discuss slavery. L.D. Brady was elected chairman of that first Republican convention. It was a representative gathering of 208 delegates who had been selected for

13959-508: The left-center of the Republican Party. He explained his balancing act: Disagreements on tariffs were pulling the party apart. Roosevelt tried to postpone the issue, but Taft had to meet it head on in 1909 with the Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act . Eastern conservatives led by Nelson W. Aldrich wanted high tariffs on manufactured goods (especially woolens), while Midwesterners called for low tariffs. Aldrich outmaneuvered them by lowering

14100-567: The liturgical churches ( Roman Catholic , Episcopal and German Lutheran ) largely rejected the moralism of the Republican Party; most of their adherents voted Democratic. William Gienapp argues that the great realignment of the 1850s began before the Whig party 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. Anti-slavery did play

14241-455: The most from any one political party. The American party system had been dominated by Whigs and Democrats for decades leading up to the Civil War. But the Whig party's increasing internal divisions had made it a party of strange bedfellows by the 1850s. An ascendant anti-slavery wing clashed with a traditionalist and increasingly pro-slavery Southern wing. These divisions came to a head in the 1852 election , where Whig candidate Winfield Scott

14382-524: The national convention from 1868 until their great defeat by William Jennings Bryan in 1896. The Democratic coalition was composed of traditional Democrats in the North (many of them former Copperheads ). They were joined by the Redeemers in the South and by Catholic immigrants, especially Irish-Americans and German-Americans . In addition, the party attracted unskilled laborers and hard-scrabble old-stock farmers in remote areas of New England and along

14523-655: The new rules of the game for campaign funding, the Progressives launched investigations and exposures (by the ' muckraker ' journalists) into corrupt links between party bosses and business. New laws and constitutional amendments weakened the party bosses by installing primaries and directly electing senators. Theodore Roosevelt shared the growing concern with business influence on government. When William Howard Taft appeared to be too cozy with pro-business conservatives in terms of tariff and conservation issues, Roosevelt broke with his old friend and his old party. After losing

14664-650: The nineteenth century, third parties such as the Prohibition Party , Greenback Party and the Populist Party evolved from widespread antiparty sentiment and a belief that governance should attend to the public good rather than partisan agendas. Because this position was based more on social experiences than any political ideology, nonpartisan activity was generally most effective on the local level. As third-party candidates tried to assert themselves in mainstream politics, however, they were forced to betray

14805-498: The old ways. Klement argued in the 1950s that the Copperheads' activities, especially their supposed participation in treasonous anti-Union secret societies, were mostly false inventions by Republican propaganda machines designed to discredit the Democrats at election time. Curry sees Copperheads as poor traditionalists battling against the railroads, banks, and modernization. In his standard history Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), James M. McPherson asserted Klement had taken "revision

14946-596: The opposition Democrats won only the 1884 and 1892 presidential elections (the Democrats also won the popular vote in the 1876 and 1888 presidential elections, but lost the electoral college vote), though from 1875 to 1895 the party usually controlled the United States House of Representatives and controlled the United States Senate from 1879 to 1881 and 1893 to 1895. Indeed, scholarly work and electoral evidence emphasizes that after

15087-621: The party and the Democrats swept to a landslide in the off-year elections, even defeating McKinley himself. Foreign affairs seldom became partisan issues (except for the annexation of Hawaii , which Republicans favored and Democrats opposed). Much more salient were cultural issues. The GOP supported the pietistic Protestants (especially the Methodists , Congregationalists , Presbyterians , and Scandinavian Lutherans) who demanded prohibition . That angered wet Republicans, especially German Americans , who broke ranks in 1890–1892, handing power to

15228-551: The peace sentiment led to deep divisions and occasional violence across the North. Third, Weber concluded that the peace movement deliberately weakened the Union military effort by undermining both enlistment and the operation of the draft. Indeed, Lincoln had to divert combat troops to retake control of New York City from the anti-draft rioters in 1863. Fourth, Weber shows how the attitudes of Union soldiers affected partisan battles back home. The soldiers' rejection of Copperheadism and overwhelming support for Lincoln's reelection in 1864

15369-448: The political warfare. War issues resonated for a quarter century, as Republicans waved the "bloody shirt" (of dead union soldiers), and Democrats warned against non-existent "Black supremacy" in the South and plutocracy in the North. The modernizing Republicans who had founded the party in 1854 looked askance at the perceived corruption of Ulysses S. Grant and his war veterans, bolstered by the solid vote of freedmen. The dissenters formed

15510-637: The prohibition on slavery in territory north of 36° 30′ latitude that had been part of the Missouri Compromise . This change was viewed by anti-slavery Northerners as an aggressive, expansionist maneuver by the slave-owning South. Opponents of the Act were intensely motivated and began forming a new party. The Party began as a coalition of anti-slavery Conscience Whigs such as Zachariah Chandler and Free Soilers such as Salmon P. Chase . The first anti-Nebraska local meeting where "Republican"

15651-468: The purpose of forming an anti-slavery party. The name "Republican" was adopted at this convention together with a platform that formed the basis of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The new Republican Party envisioned modernizing the United States, emphasizing expanded banking, more railroads and factories, and giving free western land to farmers ("free soil") as opposed to letting slave owners buy up

15792-470: The realignment of the Free Soil movement into the Republican Party in 1856, which allowed the party to dominate the North, and the realignment of the more northern portion of Whigs, Know Nothings and Constitutional Unionists along the coastal Midatlantic into the Democratic Party after 1864. These realignments allowed the GOP to become the majority party, but with rather weak electoral support in Congress and

15933-593: The repeal of laws enabling slaveholding in free territories and "resistance by Constitutional means of Slavery in any Territory", defense of anti-slavery individuals in Kansas who were coming under physical attack, and a call to "resist and overthrow the present National Administration" of Franklin Pierce , "as it is identified with the progress of the Slave power to national supremacy". Its first national nominating convention

16074-522: The south with free states, free territories, and free waters, building what they called a 'cordon of freedom' around slavery, hemming it in until the system's own internal weaknesses forced the slave states one by one to abandon slavery. The Republican Party launched its first national organizing convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 22, 1856. This gathering elected a governing National Executive Committee and passed resolutions calling for

16215-400: The split that ruined the party in 1860 . That year, northern Democrats nominated Douglas as the candidate of democracy, while the southern wing put up John Breckinridge as the upholder of the rights of property and of states' rights, which in this context meant slavery. In the South, ex-Whigs organized an ad hoc "Constitutional Union" Party, pledging to keep the nation united on the basis of

16356-462: The splits in the Democratic Party during the transitional period of 1854–1858. The Republican Party was more driven, in terms of ideology and talent; it surpassed the hapless American Party in 1856. By 1858 the Republicans controlled majorities in every Northern state, and hence controlled the electoral votes for president in 1860. The ideological force driving the new party was modernization, and opposition to slavery, that anti-modern threat. By 1856

16497-433: The spring and summer of 1863, the paper urged its Irish working-class readers to pursue armed resistance to the draft passed by Congress earlier in the year. When the draft began in the city, working-class European Americans , largely Irish, responded with violent riots from July 13 to 16, lynching, beating and hacking to death more than 100 black New Yorkers and burning down black-owned businesses and institutions, including

16638-459: The state level moralistic pietists pushed hard for prohibition , and in some states for the elimination of foreign-language schools serving German immigrants. The Bennett Law in Wisconsin produced a bruising ethnocultural battle in that state in 1890, which the Democrats won. The millions of postwar immigrants divided politically along ethnic and religious lines, with enough Germans moving into

16779-475: The support of black Republicans in the South, and defeated Roosevelt there. Roosevelt led many (but not most) of his delegates to bolt out of the convention and created a new party (the Progressive , or "Bull Moose" ticket), in the election of 1912 . Few party leaders followed him except Hiram Johnson of California. Roosevelt had the support of many notable women reformers, including Jane Addams. During

16920-507: The tariff on farm products, which outraged the farmers. The great battle over the high Payne–Aldrich Tariff Act in 1910 ripped the Republicans apart and set up the realignment in favor of the Democrats. Insurgent Midwesterners led by George Norris revolted against the conservatives led by Speaker Cannon. The Democrats won control of the House in 1910 as the GOP rift between insurgents and conservatives widened. In 1912, Roosevelt broke with Taft, rejected Robert M. La Follette , and tried for

17061-602: The treatment of ex-Confederates and of former slaves, or freedmen . Johnson broke with the Radical Republicans and formed a loose alliance with moderate Republicans and Democrats. A showdown came in the Congressional elections of 1866 , in which the Radicals won a sweeping victory and took full control of Reconstruction, passing key laws over the veto. Johnson was impeached by the House , but acquitted by

17202-417: The vote was enough to carry the North and thus win the electoral college. It was the measure of genius of President Lincoln not only that he won his war but that he did so by drawing upon and synthesizing the strengths of anti-slavery, free soil , democracy, and nationalism. The Confederacy abandoned all party activity, and thereby forfeited the advantages of a nationwide organization committed to support of

17343-408: The votes of clients, especially recent immigrants. Newspapers continued to be the primary communication system, with the great majority closely linked to one party or the other. Both parties consisted of broad-based voting coalitions. Throughout the North, businessmen, shop owners, skilled craftsmen, clerks and professionals favored the Republicans, as did more modern, commercially oriented farmers. In

17484-399: The war, upper-middle-class men in major cities formed Union Leagues to promote and help finance the war effort. Following the 1864 elections, Radical Republicans Led by Charles Sumner in the Senate and Thaddeus Stevens in the House set the agenda by demanding more aggressive action against slavery and more vengeance toward the Confederates. Under Republican congressional leadership,

17625-581: The western Democracy [i.e. the Democratic Party]. His bitter cries against protective tariffs and national banks , his intense race prejudice , his suspicion of the eastern Yankee , his devotion to personal liberty , his defense of the Constitution and State's rights faithfully reflected the views of his constituents. Like other Jacksonian agrarians , he resented the political and economic revolution then in progress. Voorhees idealized

17766-975: The women's suffrage movement. McKinley was the first President to promote pluralism , arguing that prosperity would be shared by all ethnic and religious groups. The new Jewish element of the party favored socialism. In 1898, the first Jewish U.S. Senator elected from outside of the former Confederacy was Republican Joseph Simon of Oregon . Progressive leaders included President Theodore Roosevelt , Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. , Senator Hiram Johnson in California, Senator George W. Norris in Nebraska, Senator Bronson M. Cutting in New Mexico, Congresswoman Jeannette Rankin in Montana and Senator William Borah in Idaho. The first important reform mayor

17907-422: Was Hazen S. Pingree of Detroit (1890–1897), who was elected Governor of Michigan in 1896. In New York City , the Republicans joined nonpartisan reformers to battle Tammany Hall and elected Seth Low (1902–1903). Golden Rule Jones was first elected mayor of Toledo as a Republican in 1897, but was reelected as an independent when his party refused to renominate him. Many Republican civic leaders, following

18048-399: Was General Ambrose Burnside 's 1863 General Order Number 38 , issued in Ohio, which made it an offense (to be tried in military court) to criticize the war in any way. The order was used to arrest Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham when he criticized the order itself. However, Lincoln commuted his sentence but exiled him to the Confederacy. Probably the largest Copperhead group was

18189-431: Was a moralistic party that appealed to the middle-class fear of corruption—identifying that danger with Catholics, especially the recent Irish immigrants who seemed to bring crime, corruption, poverty and bossism as soon as they arrived. Anti-slavery did play a role but it was less important at first. The Know Nothing party embodied the social forces at work, but its weak leadership was unable to solidify its organization, and

18330-465: Was a tax on the little man. It had greatest support in the Northeast, and greatest opposition in the South and West. The Midwest was the battle ground. McKinley promised that high tariffs would end the severe hardship caused by the Panic of 1893 . He denounced William Jennings Bryan , the Democratic nominee, as a dangerous radical whose plans for "Free Silver" at 16–1 (or Bimetallism ) would bankrupt

18471-465: 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. The election of Lincoln as president in 1860 opened a new era of Republican dominance based in the industrial North and agricultural Midwest. The Third Party System was dominated by

18612-466: 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. Various prohibitionist and nativist movements emerged, especially the American Party, based originally on the secret Know Nothing lodges. It

18753-498: Was decisive in securing the Northern victory and the preservation of the Union. The Copperheads' appeal, she argues, waxed and waned with Union failures and successes in the field. There was no official flag for Copperheads they differed from area to area. Most accounts from that time indicate some flags had a white field white with the inscription "peace" and "nation." Other were American with 13 to 22 stars and 11-7 stripes these were known as "exclusionary flags". They mostly cut out

18894-493: Was dispatched with some difficulty and danger. What are we to think of a people who resort to such weapons of warfare. During the American Civil War (1861–1865), the Copperheads nominally favored the Union and strongly opposed the war, about which they faulted abolitionists . They demanded immediate peace and resisted draft laws . They wanted President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans ousted from power, seeing

19035-442: Was elected Governor of New York and immediately became a likely presidential candidate. Most of the state Republican parties accepted the antislavery goal except Kentucky . During the Civil War , the party passed major legislation in Congress to promote rapid modernization , including a national banking system , high tariffs , the first income tax , many excise taxes , paper money issued without backing (" greenbacks "),

19176-581: Was held in June 1856 in Philadelphia . John C. Frémont ran as the first Republican nominee for President in 1856 behind the slogan "Free soil, free silver, free men, Frémont and victory!" Although Frémont's bid was unsuccessful, the party showed a strong base. It dominated in New England, New York and the northern Midwest and had a strong presence in the rest of the North. It had almost no support in

19317-570: Was more successful in Court, bringing antitrust suits that broke up the Northern Securities Company trust and Standard Oil . Roosevelt moved to the left in his last two years in office, but was unable to pass major Square Deal proposals. He did succeed in naming his successor, Secretary of War William Howard Taft , who easily defeated Bryan again in the 1908 presidential election . By 1907, Roosevelt identified himself with

19458-426: Was suggested as a name for a new anti-slavery party was held in a Ripon, Wisconsin schoolhouse on March 20, 1854. The first statewide convention that formed a platform and nominated candidates under the Republican name was held near Jackson, Michigan , on July 6, 1854. At that convention, the party opposed the expansion of slavery into new territories and selected a statewide slate of candidates. The Midwest took

19599-527: Was trounced by Franklin Pierce . Southern Whigs, who had supported the prior Whig president Zachary Taylor , had been burned by Taylor and were unwilling to support another Whig. Taylor, who despite being a slaveowner, had proved notably anti-slave after campaigning neutrally on the issue. With the loss of Southern Whig support, and the loss of votes in the North to the Free Soil Party , Whigs seemed doomed. So they were, as they would never again contest

19740-471: Was uncommon among the rank-and-file Democrats in Indiana. The chief historians who look more favorably on the Copperheads are Richard O. Curry and Frank L. Klement . Klement devoted most of his career to debunking the idea that the Copperheads represented a danger to the Union. Klement and Curry have downplayed the treasonable activities of the Copperheads, arguing the Copperheads were traditionalists who fiercely resisted modernization and wanted to return to

19881-622: Was undercutting that revenue, and entirely new, outside sources of funding became critical. Mark Hanna systematically told nervous businessmen and financiers that he had a business plan to win the election, and then billed them for their share of the cost. Hanna spent $ 3.5 million in three months for speakers, pamphlets, posters, and rallies that all warned of doom and anarchy if Bryan should win, and offered prosperity and pluralism under William McKinley. Party loyalty itself weakened as voters were switching between parties much more often. It became respectable to declare oneself an 'independent'. Throughout

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