Vince opined:
<<It [the Republican Party] was founded to assert federal soverignity over
the states and to free the slaves.>>
I agree with the gist of your chronology, Vince, but this statement calls for
elaboration. The Republican party was formed, primarily, to oppose *the
expansion of slavery* into the new Western Territories under the
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The act provided that the question of slavery
in the proposed territories of Kansas and Nebraska would be left to the
residents of each territory. This enraged many because it repealed the
Compromise of 1820, which banned slavery in that area.
The Republican Party was organized as an answer to the divided politics,
political turmoil, arguments and internal division, particularly over the
Kansas-Nebraska Act and slavery, that plagued the many existing political
parties in the United States in 1854. The new party's platform was opposed to
the expansion of slavery in the Territories under the act, to be sure, but
did not endeavor to "free the slaves."
I split hairs on the distinction because opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska
act, the primary impetus for the formation of the Republican party, was not
based solely on the abolitionist cause. For instance, staunchly democratic
Southern Illinois was angered at the act because residents feared that
opening Kansas to slaveholders would prevent the settlement of small farmers
like themselves. Violently negrophobic, voters in this section wanted
nothing to do with abolitionism. Others who would become Republicans were
hostile to Kansas-Nebraska, but had no desire to see that opposition
translated into the general anti-slavery movement.
The Free Soil Party, asserting that all had a natural right to the soil,
demanded that the government re-evaluate homesteading legislation and grant
land to settlers free of charge. The Conscience Whigs, the "radical" faction
of the Whig Party in the North, alienated themselves from their Southern
counterparts by adopting an anti-slavery expansion position. All these
groups, which had been marching under different banners, became Republicans.
-Julius
