Republican Party History

From the Dare County Republican Party

On this day in 1864, the Republican-controlled 38th Congress repealed the notorious Fugitive Slave Act. The law had enabled slave catchers to operate freely in northern states and to kidnap any African-American residing there. Merely by attesting that the person was an escaped slave, a slave catcher could chain him and drag him away to a southern slave market. Moreover, the law required all free people as well as all local and state and federal government officials to assist slave catchers.

A pair of Democrats, Senator James Mason (D-VA) and Senator Andrew Butler (D-SC), had written the Fugitive Slave Act.

The bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Act was written by a Republican congressman from Ohio, Rufus Spalding. A Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, signed it into law.

"If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong." Abraham Lincoln, 1864

Celebrating our party's heritage is not just for minority outreach. All Republicans should be proud of the fact that the GOP has been a great force for good ever since being founded in 1854 to oppose the Democrats' pro-slavery, anti-freedom agenda.