PART I

Somehow the Republican Party, also known as the Grand Ol' Party (GOP) went from this:



to this:



Velveeta will take the next couple of weeks going over how the heck we got here.

The Republican Party was established in 1854 by former members of Whigs and Free Soil Party-Party. They were popular in the northern states and were fiercely opposed to everything the South stood for due to their intense jealousy. The South had all the nice beaches and the best fishing and hunting. The key theme of the early GOP was anti Slavery. They were opposed to the Democratic Party as well as the Know Nothing Party which was also popular at that time. The Democratic party was confused about the word "democratic" at that time, as they were the party of rich white men who owned slaves and hated poor people. Mitt Romney would have felt right at home there. The Know Nothing Party's main agenda was to keep America pure from the influence of those dirty Catholic immigrants. The Know Nothing Party is almost exactly like the Tea Party, except replace Catholics with anyone non-white. To belong to the party one had to be white, male and born protestant. They accused the Catholics of signing up non citizens and dead people to vote. Sound familiar?

The party launched its first national convention in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in February 1856, with its first national nominating convention held in the summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. John C. Frémont ran as the first Republican nominee for President in 1856, using the political slogan: "Free soil, free silver, free men, Frémont." Note that they didn't care much about women, and this seems to be an ongoing trend for this party. Although Frémont's bid was unsuccessful, the party showed a strong base. It dominated in New England, New York and the northern Midwest, and had a strong presence in the rest of the North. It had almost no support in the South, and in fact, were laughed at on many a multi-columned front veranda while sipping sweet tea.

The first real republican was Abe Lincoln. He was elected to be President in 1860 because he was so tall that they could build smaller stages. It was tough times back in the 1860's and stages were hard to build on muddy roads. The party was anti-slavery and fought hard for black men to be free.

After the north attacked and decimated the South, the slaves were thankfully freed with President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. It made slavery illegal in all states; and soon after the Proclamation the freed slaves were also given the right to vote when Congress passed the 15th Amendment. Women, however, were still not allowed to vote. Even the white ones!

Sadly, Abe Lincoln was gunned down while watching a really bad production of Our American Cousin by a local acting company. Of the production one critic hailed it as "insipid, with scenery that performs with more rigor and emoting than the cast".
Lincoln was killed by another bad actor, John Wilkes Boothe who had been turned down for a role in this production. Also, he was attempting to revive the Confederate cause. Basically, he was too lazy to make his own drinks and pick his own tomatoes and wanted slavery restored.

The second republican president was Ulysses S. Grant. The "S" stood for sobriety-impared and his presidency was lackluster except for his dealing with the Native Americans peace pacts, reconstruction of the South, and his nomination of several prominent Supreme Court Justices, notably one that we still have today: Justice Scalia.

President Grant died at the age of 63 from throat cancer and was buried next to his wife in Grant's Tomb once they found were it was.

Next, in Part II: The Party begins to focus on the new under privileged: Big Business.