What events led to the creation of the Republican Party?

By February 1854, anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party.

The Republican Party began as a coalition of anti-slavery Conscience Whigs and Free Soil Democrats opposed to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, submitted to Congress by Stephen Douglas in January 1854.

Anti-slavery Whigs had begun meeting in the upper midwestern states to discuss the formation of a new party. One such meeting, in Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, is generally remembered as the founding meeting of the Republican Party.