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Free Soil Party Candidates, 1848

A campaign poster for Free Soil Party candidates Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams for President and Vice-President. Above is the American eagle, below is the Capitol and President's House. Martin Van Buren was the 8th President of the United States, from March 4th, 1837 until March 4th, 1841. View the original source document: WHI 97129

Author: Dr. Sergio González

Last Updated: July 15, 2024

A New Vision for the United States

By 1840s, the Free Soil Party broadened their agenda to include goals such as free homesteads to settlers, federal aid for internal improvements and opposition to extending slavery into the territories. The Free Soil Party's goals proved more popular in Wisconsin than the rest of the nation, especially the opposition to expanding slavery.

Kansas-Nebraska Bill

In 1854, Democratic senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois presented Congress with a plan to organize the Kansas and Nebraska territories. The plan was called the Kansas-Nebraska bill. The 1820 Missouri Compromise had closed the area to slavery. But the Douglas bill would repeal the compromise and allow settlers to decide for themselves whether to make slavery legal. But Wisconsin residents — most of whom were immigrants — were outraged by the measure that denied non-citizen immigrants the right to vote or hold office in either territory.

Whig, Free Soil and most Democratic Wisconsin newspapers disapproved of the amendment disenfranchising aliens as well as the provision opening the territories to slavery. Many political leaders held meetings against the bill in the early months of 1854. Lawyer Alan E. Bovay led a group of various party representatives in Ripon who took a stand against the bill. They suggested the formation of a new party. Other anti-Nebraska meetings in Michigan, New York and throughout the North also recommended the organization of a new party to protest the bill.

The Republican Party

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Birthplace of the Republican Party

Exterior view of the birthplace of the Republican Party, located on the Republican House grounds, in Fond du Lac. Photo ca. 1950. View the original source document: WHI 39662

The word "Republican" was used to describe the movement for the first time in June of 1854. New York editor Horace Greeley wrote in an article that the title would "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."

In July of 1854, a convention to organize the new party was held in Madison. The members resolved, "That we accept this issue, forced upon us by the slave power, and in the defense of freedom will cooperate and be known as Republicans" (Current, 221). The Wisconsin Republican Party was dominated by former Whigs. They played down their backgrounds to concentrate solely on the issue of slavery. It was the one issue all Republicans could agree on.

When the 1854 election results were in, Wisconsin Republicans had captured one of the two U.S. Senate seats, two of the three U.S. House of Representatives seats, a majority of the state assembly and many local offices. Wisconsin elected a Republican governor the next year.

Local meetings were held throughout the North in 1854 and 1855. The first national convention of the new party was held in Pittsburgh on February 22, 1856. Modern reference books usually cite Ripon as the birthplace of the organized movement to form the party. If not born in Ripon, the Republican party was at least conceived there.

Republicans dominated state politics from 1855-1900 (Republicans held governor’s mansion for all but three terms from 1860-1900); Stalwarts consolidated party power, who used machine-style approach, including buying elections; led to reform movement from within party, led by Robert M. La Follette, Sr., who was determined to return control of elections to the state’s citizens (“a movement marked by righteous anger, a democratic worldview, domestic reforms, and disdain for foreign interventionism” (Bloodworth)).

From 1900-1934, the Stalwarts battled with Progressive Republicans, led by Robert La Follette Sr.’s sons, Phil and Robert Jr., for control of both party and statewide offices; Progressive strain dominated for much of this period.

When Stalwarts recaptured control of the party in the early 1930s, Wisconsin Progressives split from Republican Party and created independent party; from 1934 to 1946, the Progressive Party rose to power during Great Depression, had strong connections to FDR; by late 1930s, even made allies with Milwaukee Socialists, who had for decades moved from a political wariness towards collaboration, especially in opposing US interventionism and monopolistic businesses and in advocating for clean government; provided model for the social safety net programming that became national framework; a galvanized Republican Party and the Progressives’ early opposition to United States’ involvement in World War II, however, helped bring its dominance to an end.

1946 as sea change year for Republicans, as Joseph R. McCarthy defeated Robert La Follette Jr. for the Republican senatorial nomination.

Conservative revolution in 1970s, fueled by recession and small government push; Tommy Thompson elected in 1986 amidst Reagan-era conservativism; served for fourteen years (longest-serving governor in state history) and led seismic changes in state’s welfare system, which became a model for national shifts in the 1990s. Thompson’s administration also created nation’s first school choice program.

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[Sources: The History of Wisconsin vol 2 (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin); Kasparek, Jon, Bobbie Malone and Erica Schock. Wisconsin History Highlights: Delving into the Past (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2004); Diamond Jubilee Celebration Committee. Dedicated to the Little White School House, 1854-1929: Republican diamond jubilee celebration, Ripon, Wisconsin, June 7th, 8th, 9th, 1929. (Ripon, Wis., Ferd. Fisher and Associates, 1929); Gilman, A. F. The origin of the Republican Party. (Wisconsin : A.F. Gilman?, 1914?)]