REPUBLICAN PARTY ORIGINS

Remote from the rest of the country, California saw the birth of a local Republican Party in 1856, two years later than in most Northern states. Then, after its birth, more years would elapse before the new party would be able to elect anyone to statewide office or to deliver California's electoral votes to a presidential candidate. Moreover, even in its Civil War era heyday, beginning with Lincoln's victory in the state in 1860, California's Republican Party was cautious and conservative relative to the party's manifestations in other areas in which a Radical component flourished. Nonetheless, its rise to power represented a significant departure from what had constituted the political landscape of the 1850s. Coupled with civil rights activism by African Americans and the pioneering antiracist discourse (by a white person) introduced by Thomas Starr King, the partisan change heralded a new day.

Cornelius Cole, a Sacramento lawyer and protégé of William Seward, was the catalyst for the first Republican Party meeting, held in Sacramento on March 8, 1856. The organizers met again later that month, and those in attendance pledged to oppose the “aggressions of slavery.” Opposition to the extension of slavery into the West was, of course, the sine qua non of the national party. The next step was the call for a state convention in April. To the convention came 125 delegates, but more than half hailed from either Sacramento or San Francisco. Indeed, only 13 of the 42 counties in the state were represented.