Find five and tell them that the Republican Party was founded in 1854 as the ANTI-SLAVERY PARTY.
 

The first Republican convention was held in Pittsburgh, PA in 1856 and the first nominating convention that summer in Philadelphia. John C. Fremont from California was elected as the first Republican Candidate for President, and the slogan for that campaign was “Free soil, Free labor, Free men.”

The Republican platform of 1856 had just nine planks and six of them “set forth bold declarations of equality and civil rights for African Americans based on the principles of the Declaration of Independence.” The Democrats nominated James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, and “their platform took the opposite position strongly defending slavery and warning: All efforts of the abolitionists . . . are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences and all such efforts have an inevitably tendency to diminish the happiness of the people.” Amazingly, Buchanan won the election. (Barton, David, American History in black and White, Wallbuilder Press: 2004. Pp. 22-23)

In 1860, just 6 years after its founding, the Republicans nominated and elected Abraham Lincoln as the 16th president of the United States. His northern Democrat opponent was Stephen Douglas who stated, "I hold that a Negro is not and never ought to be a citizen of the United States. I hold that this government was made on the white basis; made by the white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and should be administered by white men and none others." [Sen. Stephen A. Douglas (D., Ill.), 1858, Presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, 1860]

With a split in the Democrat party, (the southern Democrats nominated John Breckinridge), Abraham Lincoln won the election with 40% of the popular vote, but 59% of the Electoral Vote. Republicans also won both houses of Congress and were in control of the lawmaking for the first time. “With the Republicans firmly in control of the federal government, they quickly began implementing significant changes. In 1862, they abolished slavery in Washington, D.C., and 1863, the Emancipation was issued, freeing slaves in the southern States in rebellion.” (Barton, Pp.27-28)