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.
New York Republican State Committee
The establishment of the Republican Party in New York in the 1850s was a difficult task. At the time, the nativist American Party, (a party evolved from the Know Nothing Party) was active. However, the committee presented nominees from a party with well-recognized members, a defined set of principles, stable, powerful, well-known leaders and a well established structure. The committees nominees were first successful in 1856.
Around 1894, when immigration was at its peak, the New York State Constitution created a clause which caused upstate New York to have reappointed districts so that there would be more votes per district. This gave native New Yorkers more votes than immigrants. It was not until 1974 that the US Supreme Court deemed this clause unconstitutional. This created a turmoil in the politics of New York because the Republican party lost its hold on the state legislature. Since 1959, Nelson Rockefeller (1959–73) and George Pataki (1995-2006) were the only two major Republican governors of New York.