who were the leaders of the opposition republican party
Republican Party (United States) Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex Whigs and ex Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party. The main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil. The first public meeting of the general "anti-Nebraska" movement where the name "Republican" was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20, 1854, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin.[22] The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party.[23]
History of the United States Republican Party The Republican Party, also commonly called the GOP (for "Grand Old Party"), is one of the world's oldest extant political parties. It is the second oldest existing political party in the United States after its primary rival, the Democratic Party. It emerged in 1854 to combat the Kansas–Nebraska Act, an act that dissolved the terms of the Missouri Compromise and allowed slave or free status to be decided in the territories by popular sovereignty. The party had almost no presence in the Southern United States, but by 1858 in the North it had enlisted former Whigs and former Free Soil Democrats to form majorities in nearly every Northern state.