Yesterday marked the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. 150 years ago yesterday the Confederate Army attacked Fort Sumter, which fell two days later to the Confederate rebels on April 14, 1861.
In November 1860, Abraham Lincoln, a Republican and a lawyer from Illinois, was elected as President of the United States of America. Lincoln ran on the Republican Party's platform, which included planks on: the abolition of slavery, extending statehood to Kansas as a free state (ref. "Bleeding Kansas"), the construction of a transcontinental railroad to the Pacific Ocean, federally funded improvements to river and sea ports and harbors. The platform also encouraged cooperation amongst all men from all parties to see those goals become reality and to protect the institutions and Constitution of the United States of America.
Approximately six months after taking the oath of office, Lincoln was faced with a country at war with itself. The Southern Democrats who opposed his campaign and election as President considered Lincoln a "sectional President," one who sided with Northern sensibilities on slavery and modernization. The South saw Lincoln's election as an excuse to secede from the Union because they feared Lincoln would abolish slavery soon after he took office. However, Lincoln and the Republican Party believed the federal government did not have the authority to end slavery where it already existed (the South), but that it could regulate the issue of slavery where it had never existed before (the territories).
Consequently, for the first two years of the Civil War Lincoln was most concerned with reuniting the country and ending the South's attempt at sovereign independence. He was supported by most Northern politicians; however, as the Civil War raged on the issue of slavery quickly rose to equal importance with the issue of reunification. Lincoln believed he could not end slavery without first saving the Union, and he could not save the Union without ending slavery. Therefore, in the fall of 1862 Lincoln announced he would issue a formal emancipation of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America that did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863.
Historian Benjamin Quarles wrote "As a constitutionalist Lincoln was dedicated to the preservation of the Union. If Lincoln had a ruling passion, it was to show the world that a government based on the principles of liberty and equality was not a passing, short-lived experiment." Lincoln knew the emancipation of slaves in the Confederate states would weaken the rebels, strengthen the North and was the morally right thing to do. Therefore, on January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the executive order known as the "Emancipation Proclamation," which declared the end of slavery only in those states under Confederate control.
The proclamation had the desired effects, and on April 9, 1865 the Civil War ended with Lee's surrender at the Appomattox Court House.
The Republican Party's accomplishments between 1860 and 1862 are often overshadowed by the Civil War. Indeed, during that time the Republican held Congress passed and enacted major legislation to modernize the country and its economy, which included: a national banking system, the first temporary income tax, paper money issued without backing, homestead laws, railroads,and federal aid for education and agriculture.
I'll leave you with an excerpt from Frank Abial Flower's 1884 History of the Republican Party: Embracing Its Origin , Growth and Mission, which I think best describes the drive and purpose of the Republican Party between 1854 and 1865:
"The Republican Party has been the most powerful champion of freedom and equal rights in the world. The feeble and scattered elements that 50 years ago [1830s] began to combine, here and there, were all lovers of human equality. Under various names, led by a purer patriotism far in advance of the different political organizations to which they had belonged, they continued to grow in numbers and influence, until, composing a majority of their respective communities in this Republic, they were, in response to an inexorable, drawn into one great spirited army, with a common purpose - equal and perpetual freedom for all - and a common name, REPUBLICAN."
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