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.
Edwin Hurlbut
In abolitionist, Liberty, and Free Soil circles the name 'republican' had been bandied around for a number of years, with even Horace Greeley using the term as early as 1852, and is credited to christening the name republican in 1854. In addition, Israel Washburn, U.S. congressman from Maine, used the name Republican in reference to forming an anti-slavery party, there were private meetings in Crawfordsville, Iowa, Ripon, Wisconsin, Exeter, New Hampshire, and the convention in Jackson, Michigan, which all claim to have first named the party republican in 1854. Research completed by Mrs. Page Johnson in 1976, agrees with the column by R.F. Howard in 1903, that Edwin Hurlbut named the Republican Party in Madison, WI., July 13, 1854. Included in Mrs. Johnson's article is a photo of the Republican float in the bi-centennial parade in Oconomowoc in 1976, on which is displayed a replica of the handbill which Hurlbut distributed in June 1854, and added signage, "Hurlbut Named Party Republican".