The Origin, The Change, The Present
The Republican party or Grand Old Party (GOP), for over 150 years, has maintained itself as a major political party within the United States of America. As a whole, the republican party follows the belief of military build up ,less taxes, and more importantly, a limited government. However, throughout recent years there has been an influx of conservative values being spread throughout the GOP. These values include harsh stances against: homosexuality, immigration, and abortion. This recent “conservative trend” has caused many to see the party as out of date. Ironically, it has not always been like this, as the party was once what would be defined as “liberal”. These liberal views included support of “conservatism” and universal health care(http://www.marketwatch.com/story/four-things-republicans-used-to-believe-2011-07-18). So, what happened? In short, the conservative influx in the 1950s would lead to this drastic change of views, which would lead us to today 's far right republican party. In order to-
The Origins Of the Republican Party
The GOP would begin in the early 1850’s as an Antislavery party in do part to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 . Within this act entailed whether or not slavery could be permitted on nebraska land by “settlers and entrepreneurs” who wanted to relocate there .
This in turn “allowed each territory to decide the issue of slavery on the basis of popular sovereignty”.Strong opposition for this
Starting during the 1970s, factions of American conservatives slowly came together to form a new and more radical dissenting conservative movement, the New Right. The New Right was just as radical as its liberal opposite, with agendas to increase government involvement beyond the established conservative view of government’s role. Although New Right politicians made admirable advances to dissemble New Deal economic policies, the movement as a whole counters conservativism and the ideologies that America was founded on. Although the New Right adopts conservative economic ideologies, its social agenda weakened the conservative movement by focusing public attention to social and cultural issues that have no place within the established Old
Popular Sovereignty was how a state was determined to be a free or slave state. The people of the state had to decide to either allow or deny slavery.
Potter argues there are four basic position held by politicians of free and slave states in their views on solving the territorial issue. The first was David Wilmot’s, “that Congress possessed power to regulate slavery in the territories and should use it for the total exclusion of the institution.” The second proposal was to extend the 36 degree Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, allowing slavery south of this line. The Third, known as the popular sovereignty proposal, is where the territorial government, not Congress, possesses the control over the decisions on slavery in the territory. The fourth, contends “that
This meant that there was a possibility of there being slavery in the new territories based on the decision of the people in those territories. This would allow for the spread of slavery which in turn would expand the slave trade helping slaveholders in the South. Popular sovereignty increased sectionalism instead of reducing it. In Kansas, the vote for slavery was bombarded by people who did not live in the state causing an incorrect evaluation of what the people wanted. This led to the creation of a second illegal government and fighting between the two different governments. This fight was so bad that Kansas became known as "Bleeding Kansas".
There were several points at issue: The United States had recently acquired a vast territory -- the result of its war with Mexico. Should the territory allow slavery, or should it be declared free? Or maybe the inhabitants should be allowed to choose for themselves?
“The Republican Party was founded in 1854 by a group of renegade Democrats, Whigs, and political independents who opposed the expansion of Slavery into new U.S. territories and states. What began as a single-issue, independent party became a major political force in the United States. Six years after the new party was formed, Republican nominee Abraham Lincoln won the U.S. presidential election. The Republican Party and its counterpart, the Democratic Party, became the mainstays of the nation's de facto two-party system.” As stated in the free dictionary’s definition of the republican party. The Republican and Democrat parties are opposites on almost every decision they come to. The Republican party is more small government whereas the Democratic party is pro big government.
popular sovereignty was the nation's topic during the 1850s. It was included in several important files including the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Compromise of 1850. famous sovereignty, or the capacity of a country to determine whether or no longer allow slavery, turned into visible as a right with the aid of the Southern states and a obvious violation of the national group spirit and supremacy of the constitution by way of the Northern states. The Southerners and Northerners both wondered if the the brand new states had slaves, so that they went into new territories to vote and affect the vote . In the end, this led to fighting in the territories and new states,causing one specifically fight-troubled nation to become referred to
For centuries, two main political parties, the Democratic Party, and the Republican Party, have divided the United States government. The Democrats are considered the liberal political party and can trace its roots all the way back to Thomas Jefferson when they were known as Jefferson’s Republicans and they strongly opposed the Federalist Party and their nationalist views. Republicans are considered the conservative political party and try to uphold more traditional values. The Republican Party came into existence just prior to the Civil War due to their long-time stance in favor of the abolition of slavery. In 1860, they became an established political party when their nominee Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States. Since their inception, the Republican and Democratic Party have had many disputes about policies. One of these major debates has focused on educational funding in the United States. The parties have different views on the education system of the country, but both agree there needs a change in some way. Democrats favor more progressive approaches to education, such as implementing the Common Core System, while Republicans tend to favor more conservative changes such as longer hours and more focused programs to better educational resources. In Virginia, Republicans from 1990 to 2013 worked to provide better educational funding more prominently than Democrats.
and in a way, was a deciding factor in that slavery would not be something that could
At this time it seemed that the issue of slavery was the only problem in the United States, almost as if a slave was being forced down the throats of the freesoilers (Document F). Stephen Douglas drafted the Kansas-Nebraska Acts in hopes of adding two new states: Kansas and Nebraska. Although it seemed that one would be a slave state, and the other a free state, the slavery issue would be decided by popular sovereignty. Many opposed this decision but did not know how to deal with it. The reason they did not know was because the Constitution did not mention it. William Lloyd Garrison said “the Constitution which subjects them to hopeless bondage is one that we cannot swear to support” (Document E). He was trying to say that the constitution can’t answer the question of slavery because the words “slave” and “slavery” are not in the constitution.
A leading example of the struggles of slavery in the western states was the struggle over slavery in Kansas. Document F depicts a political cartoon basically stating that Stephen Douglas, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan all attempted intentionally or unintentionally to spread slavery to the West. Stephen Douglas proposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act in which the Midwest Nebraska territory would be divided into two states Kansas and Nebraska and the issue of slavery would be determined by in state vote known as "popular sovereignty". Franklin Pierce aided with the signing of the bill. The results upon this bill was harsh fighting between pro-slavery supporters and non-slavery supporters in Kansas over this issue. It also led to the non-reelection of Pierce and the end to the Whig party, along with the introduction of the sectional Republican party, who opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. An attempt at forcing slavery into
Most of the opponents to the annexation to new land were from the north, in these regions the act of slavery was illegal, abolition groups started here with the dream that one day the nation shall prohibited it. Slavery made more remarkable the sectionalism (Document 3) between the north and the south, meaning that most the population where more loyal for the interest of one’s own region rather than the nation as a whole.
One of the most, if not the most, controversial and heated debates following the United States independence was regarding the institution of slavery. In the introduction to his book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine quotes Carl Schurzs’ observation as the “slave question not being a mere occasional quarrel between two sections of the country divided by a geographic line, but a great struggle between two antagonistic systems of social organization (p.15)”. The Nouthern states that allowed slavery benefited from the agricultural labor that those slaves provided. The Northern states that prohibited slavery did so for moral and pragmatic reasons; they felt it was morally wrong to deny another human any form of rights, and did not like the economic advantage it gave to the Southern states. With the use of slavery largely concentrated in the South, the movement against it came from the North and was led by abolitionists; those who were committed to bringing an end to the practice. In this course we have defined “Practice” as the conduct of policy, such as opinion, election, parties and law-making (Lecture). We define Policy as the goals of politics, those being sovereignty, defense, and a collective well-being (Lecture). The following analytical essay will examine antislavery sentiment and practices in the Northern states and the reaction of Southern states. Additionally how the pressures from both sides influenced the Policy of the United States following independence then
He stated he didn’t mind if it was voted for or not. What put him in trouble, nevertheless, was the inappropriate use of his opinion of moral supremacy in Kansas Territory. The Act of 1854 repealed the Missouri Compromise’s ban on slavery. Alternatively, the immigrants of the region would decide whether it would be subject to slavery4. For the Kansas, that did not imply. He had assumed that the method of popular supremacy would remove the problem of slavery’s extension from Congress and lay it in the colonies . He presumed that he was creating an ideal concession to Southern concerns and dignity, but that the functional result of this would be to encourage free
During this time frame The United States consisted of three geographic regions, the north, south, and the west. There was a lot of competition between these regions, the question of whether slavery should be