query: When was the U.S. Republican party formed?
passage: History of the United States Republican Party
The first anti-Nebraska local meeting where Republican was suggested as a name for a new anti-slavery party was held in a Ripon, Wisconsin schoolhouse on March 20, 1854.[6] The first statewide convention that formed a platform and nominated candidates under the name Republican was held near Jackson, Michigan on July 6, 1854. It declared their new party opposed to the expansion of slavery into new territories and selected a statewide slate of candidates. The Midwest took the lead in forming state party tickets while the eastern states lagged a year or so. There were no efforts to organize the party in the South, apart from St. Louis and a few areas adjacent to free states. The party initially had its base in the Northeast and Midwest.
passage: Israel Washburn Jr.
In 1854, angry over the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Washburn called a meeting of 30 members of the US House of Representatives to discuss forming what became the Republican Party. Republican gatherings had taken place in Wisconsin and Michigan earlier in the year, but Washburn's meeting was the first in the U.S. Capital, and among U.S. Congressmen. He was probably also the first politician of his rank to use the term "Republican", in a speech at Bangor, Maine on June 2, 1854. Washburn represented the district which included Bangor and the neighboring town of Orono, Maine, where he had his home and law office.