The Republican Party began as a Tea Party Movement--Opinion

The Republican Party began as a Tea Party Movement.

http://grandoldpartisan.typepad.com/blog/2010/09/tea_party.html

Republicans should welcome a comparison of their party’s history with that of the Democrats – the party of slavery and socialism, Big Government and the Ku Klux Klan.

As Republicans try to repel the socialist onslaught, the way to win – and to deserve to win – is to embrace our party’s original reform agenda. The patriots who created our Grand Old Party did so in order to preserve the vision of the Founding Fathers. And the way they did it has valuable lessons for us today.

Let’s first look at the party currently in power. Democrat ties to the legacy of Thomas Jefferson are negligible. In fact, the Democratic Party was established in 1832 at a national convention organized by Cabinet secretaries and other prominent supporters of the Andrew Jackson administration. From the start, the Democratic Party was a top-down organization. Submission to the grand leader and astroturfing – that is, fake grassroots activity – for the Democrats it’s the same old same old.

In contrast, the Republican Party began as a truly grassroots movement very similar to the Tea Parties now sweeping the nation. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things – that’s what created the GOP. For example, at the famous meeting in Ripon, Wisconsin that named the party “Republican” there were no politicians at all, just fifty-three men and women who took a stand. The first Republican state convention, in Jackson, Michigan, was attended by thousands of farmers and laborers and small businessmen. From the grassroots upward, that’s the Republican Party at its best.

The Republican Party was born as a civil rights movement. Our party began as a protest against a very specific outrage perpetrated by the Democrats, a law they wrote in 1854 that allowed slavery to expand into the western territories. The Democratic Party had chosen to promote slavery, and the police state and economic stagnation that went with it.

Amid the intense reaction, opponents of slavery united with a single purpose: “Enough concessions to the ‘Slavocrats’! – That’s what they called Democrats in those days, Slavocrats – “Enough concessions to the ‘Slavocrats’! We draw the line right here. NO SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES.” Over the next few months, these groups coalesced into our Republican Party.

The Republican Party was phenomenally successful from the very start, growing swiftly into one of the country’s two major parties. The Whig Party had disappeared because they refused to take a stand on THE issue of the day: slavery, yes or no. Let’s not forget that slavery is the biggest big government program of them all.

Today, the question is…socialism, yes or no. So that the Republican Party does not go the way of the Whigs, we must take a stand on the issue of the day. We must say NO to all things Obama.

Republicans achieved a synthesis of the best of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, combining Jefferson’s appeal for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” with the Whig Party’s Hamiltonian agenda for economic growth.

In time, established political figures, such as Salmon Chase and William Seward, joined the Republican Party. Nonetheless, rank-and-file Republicans were the core of this Grand New Party and many achieved leadership positions. In a similar way, Sarah Palin and other influential politicians are contributing their talents and prestige to the Tea Party movement, but they are not in control.

Instead of trying to co-opt the Tea Party movement, Republican leaders should recognize that it is in the best tradition of our Grand Old Party. Tea Party activists are championing the original agenda of the Republican Party: free minds, free markets, free expression and unlimited opportunity.

Here then is our chance to re-establish the Big Tent, but it won’t be done by reaching out to Democrats, compromising on this or that issue. On the contrary, we must remain resolutely opposed to the Democrats. When, back in the 1850s, the Democratic Party tried to promote slavery, people of honor and common sense realized that the minor issues that had been dividing them just did not matter. The only issue that did matter was stopping the expansion of slavery.

And so once again, our Grand Old Party is poised to attract a broad range of moderates and independents, who, whatever their differences, will come to understand that the only issue that does matter is stopping the expansion of socialism. Yes, millions of Americans are going along – for now – with the President. But, as the Obama administration becomes ever more disastrous, the Republican Party will be the political home of everyone who cherishes the American way of life.

Throughout his political career, Frederick Douglass appealed for Republican unity, in what he knew to be “the party of freedom and progress.” He speaks to us today.

This article is also on the Big Government website.

Michael Zak is a popular speaker to Republican organizations around the nation, showing office-holders and candidates and activists how they would benefit tremendously from appreciating the heritage of our Grand Old Party. Back to Basics for the Republican Party is his acclaimed history of the GOP, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. He is also the author of the 2005 Republican Freedom Calendar. His Grand Old Partisan website celebrates more than fifteen decades of Republican heroes and heroics. See http://www.grandoldpartisan.com/ for more information