Old Republican

Examples of Old Republican in the following topics:

• John Randolph and the Old Republicans

  • When Virginia congressman John Randolph broke with Jefferson in 1806, his political faction became known as the "Old Republicans," or "quids."
  • Virginia congressman John Randolph of Roanoke was the leader of the "Old Republican" faction of Democratic-Republicans that insisted on a strict adherence to the Constitution and opposed any innovations.
  • He summarized Old Republican principles as the following: "love of peace, hatred of offensive war, jealousy of the state governments toward the general government, a dread of standing armies, a loathing of public debts, taxes, and excises; tenderness for the liberty of the citizen; jealousy, Argus-eyed jealousy of the patronage of the President."
  • After serving as President Thomas Jefferson's spokesman in the House, Randolph broke with Jefferson in 1806 and became the leader of the Old Republicans, also known as "quids."
  • The term was first used in 1804, referring to moderates in Pennsylvania and especially a faction of the Democratic-Republican party calling itself "The Society of Constitutional Republicans."

• The "Era of Good Feelings"

  • The era saw a brief lull in the bitter partisan disputes that had plagued the Democratic-Republican and Federalist parties.
  • The Democratic-Republican Party was nominally dominant but was also largely inactive at the national level and in most states.
  • Monroe's success in mitigating party rancor produced an appearance of political unity, with almost all Americans identifying themselves as Republicans.
  • Old Republican critics of the new nationalism, among them John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, had warned that the abandonment of the Jeffersonian scheme of Southern preeminence would provoke a sectional conflict between the North and the South that would threaten the Union.
  • Old Republicans feared such an outcome was inevitable if universal adherence to the precepts of Jeffersonianism was absent.

• Madison and the Pressure for War

  • In the early nineteenth century, President James Madison faced pressure from Democratic-Republican "war hawks" to go to war with Britain.
  • President James Madison, who was elected as Thomas Jefferson's successor in 1808, was pressured by a faction of young Democratic-Republican congressmen from the South and West of the United States to go to war with Great Britain.
  • The term "war hawks" was a name used for a historical group of Democratic-Republicans in the early nineteenth century who pushed for war with Great Britain.
  • The American West then consisted of the trans-Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio, as well as territories in the Old Northwest (i.e., the Great Lakes states that did not yet have votes in Congress).
  • The term "hawk" was coined by the prominent Virginia congressman and Old Republican, John Randolph (of Roanoke), a staunch opponent to the entry into war.

• The Modern Era of Political Parties

  • Modern politics in the United States is a two-party system dominated by the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
  • The other major contemporary political party in the United States is the Republican Party.
  • It is often referred to as the GOP, which stands for "Grand Old Party," or "Gallant Old Party".
  • Bush was the 19th Republican to hold that office.
  • USA Today's review of state voter rolls indicates that registered Republicans declined in 21 of the 28 states that register voters by party, and that Republican registrations were down 350,000 in 2011.

• Change in the Democratic Party

  • In the South, political and racial tensions developed within the Republican Party as a response to attacks by the Democrats.
  • The racial tension within the Republican Party was exacerbated because poor whites resented the job competition from freedmen.
  • They decided it would be more successful to fight the Republican Party on economic grounds rather than on issues of race.
  • The Redeemers' program emphasized opposition to the Republican governments, which they considered to be a corrupt violation of true republican principles.
  • Posters around the man read, "The Republican Party is dead in the South," "Old line Whigs are dead," and "The South solid for the democracy."

• Partisan Politics

  • It was dominated by the new Republican Party (also known as the Grand Old Party or GOP), which claimed success in saving the Union, abolishing slavery and enfranchising the freedmen, while adopting many Whiggish modernization programs such as national banks, railroads, high tariffs, homesteads and aid to land grant colleges.
  • The modernizing Republicans who had founded the party in 1854 looked askance at the undisguised corruption of Ulysses S.
  • The dissenters formed a "Liberal Republican" Party in 1872, only to have it smashed by Grant's reelection.
  • By the mid-1870s, it was clear that Confederate nationalism was dead; all but the most ardent Republican "Stalwarts" agreed that the southern Republican coalition of African-American freedmen, scalawags, and carpetbaggers was helpless and hopeless.
  • People asked how much longer the Republicans could use the Army to impose control in the South.

• The End of the War

  • Lincoln and moderate Republicans favored a quick, straightforward reintegration into the Union for the Southern states.
  • President Lincoln was the leader of the moderate Republicans and wanted to speed up Reconstruction and reunite the nation painlessly and quickly.
  • Radical Republicans opposed Lincoln's plan, thinking it too lenient toward the Southern states.
  • Many conservatives, including most white Southerners, Northern Democrats, and some Northern Republicans, opposed black voting.
  • (Lincoln): "A few more stitches Andy and the good old Union will be mended!"

• The Bourbons and the Redeemers

  • The term "Bourbon" was mostly used disparagingly by critics complaining of old-fashioned viewpoints.
  • The anticorruption theme earned the votes of many Republican Mugwumps in 1884.
  • Republicans nationally pressed political rights for the newly freed slaves as the key to their citizenship.
  • In 1868, white terrorists tried to prevent Republicans from winning the fall election in Louisiana.
  • The Redeemers' program emphasized opposition to the Republican governments, which they considered to be a corrupt violation of true republican principles.

• The Democratic Party

  • Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized these factions into the Democratic-Republican Party.
  • The Democratic-Republican Party gained power in the election of 1800.
  • Democratic-Republicans split over the choice of a successor to President James Monroe, and the party faction that supported many of the old Jeffersonian principles, led by Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, became the Democratic Party .
  • Joining with former members of existing or dwindling parties, the Republican Party emerged.
  • Most War Democrats rallied to Republican President Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans' National Union Party in the election of 1864, which featured Andrew Johnson on the Republican ticket even though he was a Democrat from the South.

• The Adams Presidency

  • As the second president to hold office, Federalist John Adams followed Washington's example in stressing civic virtue and republican values.
  • Adams' combative spirit did not always lend itself to presidential decorum, as Adams himself admitted in his old age: "[As president] I refused to suffer in silence.
  • Likewise, his term witnessed numerous upheavals and conflicts—not only with France, but also as a result of the growing breach between Democratic-Republicans and Federalists.
  • Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists supported Britain, while Vice President Thomas Jefferson and the Democratic-Republicans favored France.
  • After the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, Democratic-Republicans began to use the term "the reign of witches" to describe the Federalist party and John Adams.