First Republican National Convention Nominates John C Fremont

 michael streich

In June 1856 the newly formed Republican Party nominated John C. Fremont on the second ballot to become the party’s first presidential candidate. Held in Philadelphia, a bastion of Democratic ideology, the near unanimous vote brought together a number of delegates formerly associated with other political parties to stand behind a party platform deploring “bleeding Kansas,” the extension of slavery into the territories recently acquired through the Mexican War, and the polygamous practices of the Mormons in Utah. John C. Fremont, a hero of the frontier and instigator of California’s Bear Flag Republic, was the standard bearer.

 

Philadelphia Hosts the First Republican National Convention

 

The choice of Philadelphia for the Republican National Convention helped to identify the party with the nation’s birth and with a sense of patriotism that highlighted Thomas Jefferson’s phrase in the Declaration of Independence, “…all men are created equal…” Philadelphia was the site of the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the first major city George Washington travel through to take the presidential oath in New York. In those early days of the Republic, Philadelphia citizens created a victor’s arch to greet the first president as citizens lined the streets to celebrate the birth of a nation.

 

In 1856, no such arches or celebrations took place. There were no parades with floats such as was seen in 1787 upon the completion of the Constitution. The Liberty Bell remained silent, reminding everyone in the city of brotherly love that the chief result of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act was bloody warfare in the Kansas territory between pro-slavery interlopers and those following the principle of “free labor” and free men.

 

The First Republican Political Leaders in 1856

 

The men that formed this new party were former Whigs, free-soil Democrats, followers of Webster and Clay, Van Buren and Adams. Led by New York Senator William Henry Seward, who took his name out of contention, they rebuffed overtures from the American or Know-Nothing Party, fearful of losing support among immigrant groups, notably Germans. This would become the “party of Lincoln” four years later and become forever identified as the party that ended the evils of slavery. Old alliances were broken in 1856 as some of the nation’s most influential and well-spoken political leaders met in Philadelphia.

 

Pennsylvania was the home of former Democrat David Wilmot, now a judge and one-time author of the proviso that deeply fractured Congress, as well as Thaddeus Stevens, abolitionist congressman who would emerge through the Civil War as a leader of the Radical Republicans. Both men attended the convention. But Pennsylvania was also home to James Buchanan, the Democratic nominee for the presidency.

 

James Buchanan Leads the Democratic Party

 

Buchanan was untainted by “bleeding Kansas,” having served the United States as diplomatic envoy to Imperial Russia. His political past reflected a stellar resume. But Buchanan was closed wedded to the South and identified with foreign adventurism not popular with Northern political leaders, such as the proposed annexation of slave-owning Cuba. Buchanan had also floated the idea of U.S. intervention in the Crimean War, begun in 1853. Pennsylvania’s electoral votes would go to the Democrats, in part because Buchanan led the ticket.

 

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln attempted to assure the South that his nomination represented no attack upon slavery in the South. Slavery, where it already existed, was legally protected. The emotional rhetoric in 1856, however, could well have been a harbinger of the future for the South and the peculiar institution. Although the platform did not call for emancipation, Southerners would be hard pressed not to come to that conclusion after reading speeches by ardent abolitionists like Illinois’ Owen Lovejoy. Massachusetts Senator Henry Wilson referred to the Democratic platform in terms of the “slave interest of the country…”

 

John C. Fremont and the Ideals of the American Frontier

 

Fremont represented the frontier. He had led numerous expeditions west, raised the bear flag of California, became one of that state’s first senators, and emerged as a national hero. He was also the son-in-law of Missouri Senator Thomas Hart Benton, with enough political connections to capture the 1856 nomination. Unfortunately, he was also illegitimate, born out of wedlock, a fact that played upon the morals and Christian sensibilities of voters.

 

The Lessons of the First Republican National Convention

 

The first Republican National Convention was a prelude to 1860. Seward kept his name out of voting in 1856 in order to secure the 1860 nomination. Stephen A. Douglas may have done much the same thing in the Democratic Party. Both men would be disappointed, eclipsed by events largely the fault of the 1856 victor, James Buchanan. Buchanan defeated Fremont handily in 1856. Former President James Fillmore, candidate of the American Party, received less than 900,000 popular votes.

 

The Philadelphia Convention also enabled party leaders to chart a broader course. Having rejected a union with the Know-Nothings, many American party members would join the Republicans by the 1858 mid-term elections. Victory in 1860 may have been possible as a result of this earlier convention and the lessons learned: the rhetoric was milder and talk of abolition minimized.

 

Sources:

 

Paul F. Boller, Jr., Presidential Campaign From George Washington To George W. Bush (Oxford University Press, 2004)

Frederick Merk, History of the Westward Movement (Alfred A. Knopf, 1973)

R. Craig Sautter, Philadelphia Presidential Conventions (December Press, 2000)

Page Smith, The Shaping of America: A People’s History of the Young Republic, Vol. Three (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1980)

Page Smith, The Nation Comes of Age: A People’s History of the Ante-Bellum Years, Vol. Four (McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981)