How the GOP was born

On March 20, 1854, in Ripon, Wisconsin, several dozen citizens, alarmed by the prospect of slavery spreading westward, gathered in a little white schoolhouse, a meeting widely believed to be the birthplace of the Republican Party. Correspondent Mo Rocca looks at how the Grand Old Party was formed and how it was dominant in presidential politics in the years following the Civil War, until Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.

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[janerkenbrack]

The Republican party was once progressive. Teddy Roosevelt actually formed the Progressive party after the GOP started to turn corporate.

[Auron]

“Who makes up the Republican Party today?”
“Donald Trump and those who admire him.”
That sums it up perfectly

[kjjohnson]

The party of Lincoln is now the party of Confederate flags in the Capitol building. Sadly, the irony is completely lost on most in the GOP today…

[tulsaguy]

I’m a lifelong Republican, and I don’t recognize my party anymore. I am “politically homeless” too.

[WillCrabbe]

I don’t know what it was like in 1854, cept for the books that we were allowed to read back in the 60, 70’s. I have never been or felt so afraid of what America is going through. I’m voting for a free and fair America

[AmolschCowboy]

From the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Trump.

[JerjerB]

Such a beautiful beginning. Let's hope the change towards a more civil GOP will come again and soon.

I'm a conservative who has been made to vote for the Democratic party due to the Republican Party's increasingly naked flirtations with anti-democratic and anti-republican values.

[TinLe]

The original Republicans would be appalled at what the modern GOP looks like now.

[TimmyTheTinman]

Thaddeus Stevens from my home state of Pennsylvania was an underrated legend and far ahead of his time, he would definitely be a stanch Bernie supporter today and be appalled by today’s Republican Party. It’s also worth mentioning that the Republicans were basically the successor to the Whig Party which collapsed after the 1852 Democratic landslide

[bryedtan]

4:00 No they would not recognized it. The Republicans in the 1980s I grew up when I was young do not recognized it today probably never will.

[zacharypeacock]

I have been a Republican and voted as such and i have been a Democrat and voted as such. I think both parties or unrecognizable in 2024...

[Tadicuslegion]

Republicans 1854: We're against slavery
"Republicans" 2024: we believe in installing Donald Trump as king of America

[igorschmidlapp]

"Looking out for Number One"... Politics today... no "public service"...

[libbychang]

once the party of lincoln...now the party of john wilkes booth...

[elishaj.o]

It is a shameful irony that the Republican party made a u turn on its political ideology. Lincoln would be appalled!

[jackbuckley]

Interesting history lesson on the origin of the GOP, the basic facts of which I knew already but still found this alot of fun to watch. I hope to visit Ripon someday, making a pilgrimage to that historic schoolhouse. There's a town in Michigan that claims to be the hallowed-spot for the party's creation, a rivalry that continues to this day; however, I think most historians lean toward Ripon as the party's true birthplace. The Michigan town nevertheless has a persuasive claim. It depends on how the criteria is defined. Although such a hope is pure fantasy, I love the idea of my being instrumental in forming a new political party for our current, dismally divisive political era!

[RoundingThird]

A missed opportunity to tell people about Lincoln’s ‘Wide Awakes.’

[celestine]

What happened to the regular weekly Sunday Morning schedule?

[bigcatproductions]

Here in Milwaukee We have been paralyzed by the RNC 😟💙💙💙🇺🇸

[kaypz]

It’s my first time to find out what GOP means