At the meeting a resolution was adopted, which read as follows: A meeting wall be held at 6:30 o'clock this Wednesday evening at the Congregational Church in the Village of Ripon to remonstrate against the Nebraska swindle." This meeting was held on Wednesday, March 1, 1854. Bovay told Greeley that these groups should band them together under the name Republicanīovay called for a meeting in Ripon. He told Greeley that since the New York Tribune was the leading paper in the country, he urged him to mount a call for unity among the bill's opponents. On February 26, 1854, when the Nebraska Bill was before the senate, Bovay wrote to Greeley explaining how- strong the feeling was in his area against the Nebraska Bill. Bovay and his followers were convinced that the time had come to take some form of action. The bill caused a storm of indignation from the anti-slavery factions in the North. Douglas, of Illinois introduced the "Kansas- Nebraska Bill". This was a time of intense polarization and unrest throughout the country and a time when people seemed to be losing confidence in their political leaders.ĭuring the Congressional session of 1853-54, Senator Stephen A. Many of the old party members joined the new American or "Know-Nothing" party that had just been organized. His prediction about the defeat of General Scott came true, and after the presidential election of 1852 the Whig party disintegrated. When asked by Greeley what name he would give to the new party, Bovay suggested the name "Republican."īovay returned to Wisconsin and continued to support the Whig party. The issue of slavery had become as much of a political as of a moral issue, and Bovay told Greeley that it was time for the formation of a new party that would bring together all of the anti-slavery elements of all of the other parties. Greeley felt confident of a Whig victory in the next election, while Bovay correctly predicted the defeat of the Whig party. Bovay correctly predicted that General Winfield Scott would be chosen as the Whig Party's presidential nominee, even though at the time Scott was not in the lead. He became a member of the Whig Party, but could see the writing on the wall which predicted that party's disintegration.ĭuring the National Whig Convention in 1852, Bovay was visiting in New York City, where he met Greeley for lunch in the Lovejoy Hotel. In late 1850, he he moved to Wisconsin and settled in Ripon where he began the practice of law. Bovay was admitted to the bar in Utica, N. He met and became a friend of Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune. It was there that he became secretary of the National Reform Association. He later became Professor of Languages in the Bristol Military Academy before reading law and teaching school in new York City. he was graduated from Norwich University in Vermont at age 23 and began a career as a teacher in New York state. Greeley responded offering some support for the idea, but did not mention it in his paper.īovay was born in Adams, Jefferson County, New York, on July 12, 1818. A preliminary meeting was called by Bovay on March 1st, 1854 and it was resolved that if the Nebraska bill passed, a new party opposed to the principles of the bill should be formed. In the course of the debate over the Nebraska bill, a man named Alvan Earl Bovay (pictured below) wrote to Horace Greeley on February 26, 1854, urging Greeley to use his newspaper, the New York Tribune, to call together every opponent of the Nebraska bill and unite them under the name Republican. It was on that day, at a meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin, that a group of anti-slavery activists held what is considered by many as the first public meeting of the party. Most of the time, however, parties do not collapse but rather party members fall in line, fearing the costs of the alternatives, including the costs to their careers.Many people consider Mato be the date of birth of the Republican Party. This seems to be the definitive detailed account.
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