Detroit, the work of the Advertiser and the recalcitrant old line Whigs, told against Bingham, and his vote fell considerably below that of Howard. This defection was not wholly made up in other districts, for the net Republican majority on Congressman was 5,403, or 426 more than for Governor. In the Legislature the party affiliations of members could not be exactly defined, but there was an overwhelming majority against the Democrats. The triumph was all the more striking by contrast with the result two years earlier. Then their candidate for Governor had 8,138 plurality and 2,288 clear majority. They had elected all four candidates for Congress, with 25 out of 32 Members of the State Senate, and 51 out of 72 in the House. The Democrats even now were not willing to admit that their attitude on the slavery question was the main cause of their disastrous defeat. At least many of them, and their principal organ, with the rest, charged it to the secret machinations of the Know Nothing order. It was, however, hailed throughout the country, as a straight Republican triumph. And it was an enduring one. For the next 28 years in Michigan the Democrats did not choose a single State officer, either at the fall or spring elections. They did not have a majority in either House of any Legislature, and so, of course, could not elect a United States Senator, and out of 92 Congressmen, they chose only 6. So sweeping and lasting a political revolution has rarely taken place in this country. IV. SOLIDIFYING THE PARTY. Claims to Priority in Organization-Mixed Condition and Various Names of Parties in 1854-The Conduct of Affairs in Kansas Gradually Brings all Anti-Slavery Elements Together-A Land Trick in the Interest of the Missourians-Free State Emigrant Aid Societies-Murders and Depredations by the Missourians— Elections Carried by Force and Fraud-Heroic Resistance by Free State Men and Subsequent Gain in Influence-Their Final Success Kansas at Last Admitted as a Free State, with Republican Officers and Legislature. As there was some difference of opinion on the question of individual precedence in proposing the name Republican for the new party, so there have been claims for that honor made by different states. When Massachusetts and Wisconsin celebrated the twentyfifth anniversary of their first Republican Conventions, the claim was set up in each State that its Convention was the first one of its name. Similar claims were made about the same time for Vermont, Ohio and Indiana. Still later the claim was made that "The Republican Association of Washington, D. C.," was entitled to the honor. The latter claim is not worth considering, as the association was not organized till June 19, 1855, nearly a year after Republican State Conventions began to be held. The question in regard to the others is readily determined by reference to the dates, which are matters of public record. The Michigan State Convention, whose inception and results are here presented in full detail and in shape for permanent record, was held July 6, 1854. In Wisconsin, after a number of "Anti-Nebraska" meetings had been held in different parts of the State, a call was issued July 9, for a mass convention of "all men opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the extension of the Slave Power." No names were signed to the call and no name was indicated for any new party that might grow out of it, although A. S. Bovay, one of the movers in the matter, had already stated to Horace Greeley that he intended to propose the name Republican. The Convention was held at Madison, July 13, 1854, and among the resolutions adopted was one "that we accept the issue forced upon us by the Slave Power, and in defense of freedom will co-operate and be known as Republicans." In Massachusetts a Convention, of similar spontaneous origin, was held at Worcester, July 19, 1854, at which the name Republican was adopted by the resolution "that in co-operation with the friends of freedom in sister states, we hereby form the Republican party of Massachusetts." But the Anti-Slavery people in that State were in such very decided preponderance that they did not feel under the same necessity for concentration as their associates in other states. The bulk of the Anti-Slavery vote went to the Know Nothing ticket, though there were also Whig and Free Soil tickets in the field. In Vermont, July 13, 1854, a mass convention was held of persons "in favor of resisting, by all Constitutional means, the usurpations of the propagandists of slavery," and among the resolutions adopted was one closing as follows: "We propose and respectfully recommend to the friends of freedom in other states to co-operate and be known as Republicans." A State ticket was nominated under this name, but the State committees of various parties were authorized "to fill vacancies" on their tickets. Under this power, and by amicable agreements, a Fusion ticket was afterwards made up and elected under that name. On the same day a Convention was held at Columbus, Ohio, of those in favor of "breaking the chains now forging to bind the Nation to the car of American slavery." The party which there nominated a ticket was generally known, throughout the campaign, as Republican. This seems to have been a good date for State Conventions, for on the same day one was held in Indiana, at which speeches were made by Henry S. Lane, Henry L. Ellsworth and Schuyler Colfax, a ticket was nominated, and the name Republican was adopted. In both these states the campaign and its results were similar to those in Michigan. The movement in Michigan had a great effect in promoting and directing that in Ohio and Indiana, which border upon it. Its influence was less marked in Massachusetts and Vermont, and it is not quite certain that in the latter state the name Republican was wittingly borrowed from the Western example. The adoption of the name there may have been a coincidence instead of an appropriation, but the fact remains that Michigan Republicans were the first to adopt and retain the name. Not only in the states mentioned, but in other Northern states the Anti-Slavery movement took various forms, and worked under different names. This cannot, perhaps, be better shown than by taking the designations of parties in the different states, as contained in Greeley's Whig Almanac, in giving the returns after election. They were as follows: Maine-Republican, Rum, Whig, Democrat. New Hampshire-Whig, Democratic, Free Soil. Massachusetts-Whig, Know Nothing, Democratic, Free Soil. Connecticut-Whig, Temperance, Democratic. New York--Fusion, Know Nothing, Hard Democratic, Soft Democratic. New Jersey--Whig, Temperance, Nebraska. Iowa-Republican, Nebraska. Wisconsin-Republican, Democratic. Missouri-Whig, Bentonians, Anti-Bentonians. California-Whig, Broderick Democrats, Anti-Broderick Demo crats. The Republican party, under that name, was still a local organization. But less than two years later it became National, with a Presidential ticket in the field. The history of the organization of this party would not be quite complete without a brief reference to the American, or Know Nothing party, through which many of the old Whigs found their way into its ranks. The party was based on the apprehension that the Roman Catholic Church had designs upon the government, and that its known and avowed hostility to the American public school system boded disaster to the country. Coupled with this was the belief that the influence of foreign-born voters was becoming dangerously great. Its proposition to amend the suffrage laws so as to require a residence of 14 or even 21 years, before an immigrant should be allowed to vote, was deemed by many not unreasonable, but in the secrecy of its meetings, and its extreme proscription of foreigners and Catholics, it was contrary to the spirit of the American people. For these reasons, and also because the slavery question came to overshadow all other issues, its victories, though brilliant, were not lasting. Its existence, however, furnished a refuge for those Southern Whigs who could not join the Democrats in their extreme Pro-Slavery action, but who were not yet ready to go the lengths of the Republican party in opposition to that institution. It included, in the South, such Whigs as John Bell, of Tennessee, who was the only Southerner in the Senate who voted against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; Humphrey Marshall, of Kentucky; Henry Winter Davis, of Maryland, and Horace Maynard, of Tennessee. It did not obtain great foothold in the West, but in the New England and North Middle States, it was very strong. There it gathered into its ranks those who were genuinely fearful of foreign influence in the country, many Whigs who were in hopes, through its agency, to divert attention from the slavery question, and a great mass of voters who were ready to join any party which gave the best promise, in their own locality, of conducting a successful campaign against the Democrats. The Northern men who were elected to Congress by this party, as well as those who were elected on Whig, Republican and AntiNebraska tickets, voted together, almost to a man, when Congress met. The strange fatuity of the Pro-Slavery Democrats alone made such a consolidation of the opposing elements possible. Thirteen months intervened between the elections in 1854, and the time when the Congress then chosen met, and in that period the purposes of the Pro-Slavery men in reference to Kansas, became plainly apparent. They did not intend to permit bona fide settlers to determine the question of slavery, but depended upon unlawful invaders from the Missouri border counties to impose slavery on the Territory. Nearly all the accessible portion of the Territory was covered by Indian reservations on which settlement by whites was forbidden, but within a short period preceding the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, treaties were quietly made at Washington with a number of Indian tribes, under which most of the soil of Kansas, lying within one or two hundred miles of the Missouri border, was opened to white appropriations and settlement. These purchases by the Government, though little of them was known elsewhere, were understood by the Missourians of the Western border, who had for some time been organizing |