Matthew Hochstetler 107899 February 18, 2012

The Republican Party: Its Formation and Free Labor Ideology

The politics of the United States interests and fascinates the population of almost the entire world not only because of its ideological underpinnings but also because of the sheer power and influence it has on those outside its borders. Although much culture and political thought in the US was inherited from its European roots, it has over the last 300 years developed an identity that is truly unique. This in large degree is a result of a meeting of cultures on the North American platform: the already present aboriginal tribes, the European immigrants, and the force-migrated Africans. The specific brand of European who migrated to North American had taken on the influence of the continents natural setting in combination with the native tribal unions while being subtly changed by the culture of the Africans they had enslaved. This set the stage for a new thing: a new nation and people separated from its roots with the opportunity to create a political system and entity that has become the most influential in the world. It is not strange then that the United States is a constant topic of discussion in world media. Its influence is undeniable, but the ways in which it is perceived are as varied as the cultures who perceive it. Especially in Europe the US is perceived with a mixed emotion of love and disgust, hatred and admiration. It would seem that Europe is in a unique position to understand the US, but it only seems to understand those things in which it reflected. It is perhaps therefore that the political views of the current Republican Party are so unacceptable to the European mind and are generally not well received. They appear to be arrogant, friends of the wealthy, and not in touch with what really concerns the population; oil- and warmongers, and cultural imperialists.1 The Democratic Party is more well received seeming to be much closer in thought to the social democratic political philosophies of Western Europe. But, as with the Democratic Party and political groups in general, the Republican Party is built around an ideology and a political philosophy as well. A look at the formation of the Republican party can give great insight into the partys continuity and recent revival and can shed some light onto current policy, specifically the policy of free enterprise. It is the newer of the two major US political parties and at its outset shared a fundamental interest in political liberty. The newly formed union in the nineteenth century thought that it must separate itself from the oppressive "inequalities of Europe, that avarice, class conflict, and economic inequality endangered the republic." 2 And that is what the union was, a republic, or at least a new form of the old idea of a republic with a heavy support from the American Indians federation: and for the first time on a large scale. The governance of the union was decided on by deliberation, not by "accident and force",3 through a lengthy ratification process, and after a

look at most all the complexities and dichotomies of human life, including compromise

Bromark. 2003, 190 Foner. 1995, xx 3 Ball (ed.). 2003, 1

2

(almost the only one being slavery, which proved to be an almost fatal one). 4 It was a new
thing that had to be protected, but the how of protection was what in the 1850s spawned the first political realignment, the reestablishment of the two party system, and the new Republican Party. The realignment began in the beginning of the nineteenth century amidst great change in a young nation with expansion to the west, a great influx of immigrants from Europe and Asia, and a rapidly growing economy. These progressive changes were enveloped in an old debate over slavery that had taken militant proportions. There had also been a growing dichotomy economically between autonomous freeman, both northern and southern, and slave. A solution needed to be formed to legitimize the growing wage labor class and the ruling political thought of the time was not sufficient to harbor these changes. The party system had arisen despite warnings from some of those framing the countrys political system. George Washington in his farewell address said this:
In contemplating the causes [which] may disturb our Union, it occurs as matter of serious concern, that any ground should have been furnished for characterizing parties whence designing men may endeavor to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests and views. One of the expedients of Party to 5 acquire influence is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other[s] They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party; often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the Community [T]hey are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying 6 afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.

Washingtons concerns were not ill-founded and appear to have been prophetic of what lay just around the corner. But whether or not it is possible in an elected government to function without reverting to some sort of party system is doubtful. It could have functioned under the original electorate who held some sort of productive stake in society and were generally more educated or informed than the remaining population, but that system was stigmatized as elitist and soon gave way to political democratization. But as the electorate grew to include more and more of the population, the parties became a major channel for the voice of the people. This was made clear when the issue of slavery began to come to an inevitable boiling point. The abolitionists, who had been silenced by both the Democratic and Whig parties in the North for various reasons, gained a voice and influence in the short lived Liberty party, despite having no position on numerous other issues that concerned voters. Their influence was great enough that the other parties made attempts to incorporate abolitionist sentiment into their policy. Both the Democratic party in the North, and the Whig party in general, shared a dislike for slavery but were unwilling to abolish it for the sake of national unity. In some states they even went so far as to deem abolitionist activity illegal. The abolitionists in the Liberty party, however, were able to gain ground and take advantage of two things to create a stronger Free-Soil party: a split within the Whig party they helped create, and disunity in the Democratic party. The Liberty party joined with Northern Democratic and Whig dissenters on a common platform of anti-slavery and free-soil, the idea that easy access to land was a requirement to ensure a free society. This was a strong coalition but not a party with staying power as it disintegrated after only a few elections and mostly served to bring the issue of slavery one step further on the road to Southern secession. The Whig party was soon split between North and South after stark disagreement over the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, attempts to maintain national unity and settle the issue of slavery without abolishing it. The Southern Whigs were isolated and could only attempt
McWilliams and Gibbons, eds. 1992, 1 Washington is here talking about parties by Geographical discriminations and Districts but seems to have a similar attitude toward parties in general. 6 Fitzpatrick (ed.). 1931, 225
5 4

to hold on to unity as a goal while the Northern Whigs were free to follow long harbored antislavery and free-soil policies and align themselves with like-minded Democrats and Free-Soilers. A meeting held in Ripon, Wisconsin in 1854 by sections of these three parties resulted in the formation of the Republican party. Initially, the party side-stepped all other issues or took centrist positions in order to champion the anti-slavery cause. It was a unifying force that allowed the party to incorporate many smaller political factions that had sprung up in the wake of party divisions and present a united party in 1960, with Abraham Lincoln as its victorious candidate. Its platform had developed into something that appealed to the vast majority of northern voters: safe and established antislavery issues, a central railroad to the Pacific, river and harbor improvements, tariff protection for industry and free-soil policy. 7 Embedded in the anti-slavery issue was not only the belief that it was morally depraved institution but a more underlying belief by many northerns in free labor, and nowhere was the broad appeal of the free labor ideology more apparent or its internal tensions more evident that in the speeches and writing of Lincoln. Eric Foner, in his analysis of Republican ideology before the Civil War, identifies the ideology of free labor as a major cohesive element for the party. Free labor was the idea that a free society depended upon the "workers' right to the fruits of their toil." A free society was to offer every industrious wage earner the opportunity to achieve economic independence. 8 Those who held this belief saw the black slaves as being deprived of this right and envisioned them free and, in combination with a free-soil policy, having all the opportunities of the rest of society. This is perhaps the fundamental idea within the Republican party even today. In the postCivil War South this was of course viewed with contempt in the eyes of the whites as the former slaves were always to be subordinate. There was then no place for a black worker in any sort of superior position held by a white and the idea of free labor was arrested. With emancipation in the 1860s and integration in the 1960s the road was paved for another realignment but this time from within the Republican party. In holding to the idea of free labor in the 1980s, Ronald championed the idea of free market economy. Doing this and believing that this economic ideology was stronger than communist economies he succeeded in bringing about a speedier collapse of communist Russia than would have been achieved otherwise, although its fall was imminent. But he did not do so by the expanding the power of the federal government as the Federalists and the original Republican party had done. The realignment was more in the direction of what had originally been Jeffersonian-Democracy. It was a revival of states rights, a reaction to what conservatives viewed as the taking away of rights that were fundamentally American in view of the Constitution. This conservative movement was also religious in nature and called itself the New Right. They held the cause higher than the party, a thought that is reminiscent of George Washingtons view of party politics. This realignment affected the evolution of the Republican Party in the 1970s and still affects it today. George W. Bush, while holding to certain Republican issues, increased the influence of the national government spurred the party to an even more conservative platform, with influences from the Tea Party Movement. The Republican stance today is one of mixed public and private institutions with a grand support of the private sector in a belief that this will maintain quality through the competitive market in healthcare and education. They support a strong military as the best defense, and the best offence for maintaining peace and national security; and it is the military stance and especially the economic policy of the New Right that has created conflict with northern Europeans. It is a conflict that is basic in its nature and would require far more space to discuss than can be written here; but it has its foundation in the free labor ideology that a man has freedom in ownership of himself and the right to the fruits of his labor.

7 8

Sundquist. 1983, 80-1. Foner. 1995, xxv

Bibliography
Bromark, Stian and Dag Herbjrnsrud. 2003. Frykten for Amerika: En Europeisk Historie. Oslo: Tiden Norsk Forlag. Foner, Eric. 1995. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press) xx, Questia, Web, 17 Feb. 2012. Ball, Terence (ed.). 2003. The Federalist (New York: Cambridge University Press) 1, Questia, Web, 17 Feb. 2012. McWilliams, Wilson Carey and Michael T. Gibbons, (eds.). 1992. The Federalists, the Antifederalists, and the American Political Tradition (New York: Greenwood Press) 1, Questia, Web, 17 Feb. 2012. Fitzpatrick, John C. (ed.). 1931. The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, 1745-1799, vol. 35 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office) 225, Questia, Web, 17 Feb. 2012. Sundquist , James L. 1983. Dynamics of the Party System: Alignment and Realignment of Political Parties in the United States, Rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 1983) 80-1, Questia, Web, 17 Feb. 2012.