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.
Fifth Party System
The Republican Party was split. A conservative wing, led by Senator Robert A. Taft (1889–1953) until his death, nominated Barry Goldwater in 1964. He lost badly but the faction became dominant under Ronald Reagan from 1980 onward. The liberal moderate wing was more successful before 1980; it was led by politicians of the Northeast and the West Coast, including Nelson Rockefeller, Earl Warren, Jacob Javits, George W. Romney, William Scranton, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Prescott Bush. Richard Nixon built his career by appealing to both wings. The moderate Republican wing generally changed form from the 1980s, becoming more conservative as white southerners joined it. In succeeding elections, conservatives and religious evangelicals pulled the party to the right. After 2010 the Republicans were split between a moderate wing typified by the Bushes, Mitt Romney and John McCain, and the anti-Washington Tea Party movement.