Origins of the American Civil War
In almost every northern state, organizers attempted to have a Republican Party or an anti-Nebraska fusion movement on ballots in 1854. In areas where the radical Republicans controlled the new organization, the comprehensive radical program became the party policy. Just as they helped organize the Republican Party in the summer of 1854, the radicals played an important role in the national organization of the party in 1856. Republican conventions in New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois adopted radical platforms. These radical platforms in such states as Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine, and Vermont usually called for the divorce of the government from slavery, the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Laws, and no more slave states, as did platforms in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Massachusetts when radical influence was high.
Charles T. Gorham
Originally a Democrat and later a Whig, Gorham was one of the founders of the Republican party when it was organized in the mid-1850s. In 1855 he was appointed Major General and commander of one of three divisions in the state militia, and in 1859 he was elected to one term in the Michigan State Senate. Gorham used both positions to recruit, train, and reorganize the militia in anticipation of the Civil War. He was a Delegate to the Republican National Conventions of 1864 and 1868, and served as a Presidential elector from Michigan in 1868, casting votes for the ticket of Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax.