When did the American Republican party begin?
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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.
Origins of the American Civil War
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The Massachusetts Republican Party was founded in 1854. Drawing together abolitionist and nativist anti-Catholic elements, it quickly became the dominant political force in the state and a powerful arm of the national Republican Party. Significant founding figures include Senator Charles Sumner, formerly of the Free Soil Party, and Speaker of the House Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, formerly of the American Party. 
At the time of the Republican Party's founding in 1854, all of Massachusetts's congressional representatives but Sumner were members of the nativist Know-Nothing Party. However, Banks's role as chairman of the 1856 Republican National Convention, his active support for the Republican presidential nominee John C. Frémont in 1856 and his focus on anti-slavery legislation as Speaker put him at odds with his party. Following the Democratic victory in the 1856 elections and the Dred Scott case in 1857, the national American Party organization collapsed, and most Northern members joined the nascent Republicans. In 1857, Banks ran as a Republican against incumbent Know-Nothing Governor Henry J. Gardner and won a decisive victory.
Massachusetts Republican Party
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The Republican Party had been founded in 1854, in reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Its anti-slavery stance was attractive to Seward, but he needed the Whig structure in New York to get re-elected. In September 1855, the New York Whig and Republican parties held simultaneous conventions that quickly merged into one. Seward was the most prominent figure to join the new party, and was spoken of as a possible presidential candidate in 1856. Weed, however, did not feel that the new party was strong enough on a national level to secure the presidency, and advised Seward to wait until 1860. When Seward's name was mentioned at the 1856 Republican National Convention, a huge ovation broke out. In the 1856 presidential election, the Democratic candidate, former Pennsylvania senator James Buchanan, defeated the Republican, former California senator John C. Frémont, and the Know Nothing candidate, former president Fillmore.
William H. Seward
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However, like most Forty-Eighters, his attention became increasingly focused on domestic political issues in the United States, and in particular the issue of abolishing slavery. When the Illinois Republican Party was organized at a convention in 1856, German-American Forty-Eighters were everywhere conspicuous in the proceedings; Hecker and Abraham Lincoln were selected to be the two electors-at-large if John Frémont were to win the state (which he did not). The Republicans attracted a wide array of political perspectives, with often strongly divergent views except for their opposition to slavery, and the interests of the immigrant Forty-Eighters was in conflict with the nativist Know Nothings. The influence of Hecker and the other German-American leaders was critical in keeping the party unified in regard to its most important principles.
Friedrich Hecker
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In her latest book, "To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party" (2014), Richardson extended her study of the Republican Party into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This book studied the entire life of the GOP, from its inception in the 1850s through the presidency of George W. Bush. The party’s founders united against the “slave power,” a small group of wealthy white men who controlled all three branches of government. These Republicans articulated a new vision of an America in which all hardworking men could rise. But after the Civil War, Republicans began to emulate what they originally opposed. They tied themselves to powerful bankers and industrialists, sacrificing the well-being of ordinary Americans. A similar process took place after World War II, when Republicans sought to dismantle successful New Deal policies and prop up the wealthy. However, in both cases, reformers within the party were able to return the GOP to its founding vision of equality of opportunity, first Theodore Roosevelt during the Progressive Era, and then Dwight D. Eisenhower, who enforced integration and maintained the New Deal. The Nixon and Reagan administrations have represented yet another fall from the GOP’s founding purpose. It's ironic, Richardson points out, that Republicans treated Barack Obama with an unprecedented level of disrespect, as Obama's rise from humble beginnings to the highest office in the nation embodied the vision of the original Republicans.
Heather Cox Richardson
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With its election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and its success in guiding the Union to victory in the American Civil War and abolishing slavery, the party came to dominate the national political scene until 1932. The Republican Party at its beginning consisted of African-American and White Northern Protestants, businessmen, small business owners, professionals, factory workers, and farmers. It was pro-business, supporting banks, the gold standard, railroads and high tariffs to protect factory workers and grow industry faster. Under William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, it emphasized an expansive foreign policy.
History of the United States Republican Party
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The anti-slavery "Americans" from the North formed their own party after the nomination of Fillmore in Philadelphia. This party called for its national convention to be held in New York, New York, just before the Republican National Convention. Party leaders hoped to nominate a joint ticket with the Republicans to defeat Buchanan. The national convention was held on June 12 to 20, 1856 in New York. As John C. Frémont was the favorite to attain the Republican nomination there was a considerable desire for the North American party to nominate him, but it was feared that in doing so they may possibly injure his chances to actually become the Republican nominee. The delegates voted repeatedly on a nominee for president without a result. Nathaniel P. Banks was nominated for president on the 10th ballot over John C. Frémont and John McLean, with the understanding that he would withdraw from the race and endorse John C. Frémont once he had won the Republican nomination. The delegates, preparing to return home, unanimously nominated Frémont on the 11th ballot shortly after his nomination by the Republican Party in Philadelphia. The chairman of the convention, William F. Johnston, had been nominated to run for vice-president, but later withdrew when the North Americans and the Republicans failed to find an acceptable accommodation between him and the Republican nominee, William Dayton.
1856 Republican National Convention
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Republicans have been winning under 15% of the black vote in recent national elections (1980 to 2016). While historically the party had been supporters of rights for African Americans starting in the 1860s, it lost its leadership position in the 1960s. The party abolished slavery under Abraham Lincoln, defeated the Slave Power and gave blacks the legal right to vote during Reconstruction in the late 1860s. Until the New Deal of the 1930s, blacks supported the Republican Party by large margins. Black voters shifted to the Democratic Party beginning in the 1930s, when major Democratic figures such as Eleanor Roosevelt began to support civil rights and the New Deal offered them employment opportunities. They became one of the core components of the New Deal coalition. In the South, after the Voting Rights Act to prohibit racial discrimination in elections was passed by a bipartisan coalition in 1965, blacks were able to vote again and ever since have formed a significant portion (20–50%) of the Democratic vote in that region.
Republican Party (United States)
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The Democratic Republican Party (or the Democratic Party) and the Whig Party (which had been pretty well destroyed after the 1852 elections) had been the major political parties in the United States. Corbett had been a Whig and follower of Henry Clay but when the Republican Party was founded on July 6, 1854, in Jackson, Michigan, he was one of its early and enthusiastic supporters. The Republican Party was founded as the anti-slavery party in opposition to the pro-slavery Democratic Party in one of the few fundamental reorganizations of the American political system.
Henry W. Corbett
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In 1843, a new political party arose, called the American Republican Party. On July 5, 1845, the American Republican party changed their name to the Native American Party and held their first national convention in Philadelphia. The party opposed liberal immigration policies. On June 17, 1854, the Order of the Star Spangled Banner held its second national convention in New York City. The members were "native Americans" and anti-Catholic. When the members answered questions about the group, they responded with "I know nothing about it," giving rise to the nickname Know-Nothing for the Native American Party. The new political party gained national support. The Know-Nothing party encouraged and tapped into the nation's prejudice and fears that Catholic immigrants would take control of the United States. Hostility to Catholics had a long history based on national rivalries in Europe. By 1854, the Know-Nothings gained control of Jefferson County's government.
Louisville, Kentucky, in the American Civil War