As Donald Trump’s impeachment trial begins, are Republicans headed for a split? The party’s roots in Ripon could point the way forward – Wisconsin…

RIPON The newly formed Republican Party spread like a prairie fire through rural Wisconsin in the 1800s.

Fueling the movement was the unique character of people who settled in and around Ripon,a community whose first citizens were idealists who lived in a commune.

Most of these settlers came from western New York, considered at the time to be a hotbed of "political turbulence," according to William Woolley, aretired Ripon College history professor who studiedtheparty's origins in Wisconsin.

In 1854, Ripon was a place that was unusual in the fact people liked to go to meetings where issues of national and even cosmic significance were discussed, and felt it was important to do so, Woolley said. And where citizens did not feel it at all presumptuous to think that they could change the world by themselves.

That spirit led to the birth of a new partyand Ripon's proclamation as the birthplace of the Republicans.Jumpahead 167 years and we may be witnessing the fracturingor end of the nation's conservative political party as it looks today.

Some party elders, with decades of experience representing the Riponarea as part of their districts, point to new members and ideasthatcould usher in areturn to the kind of Republican principlesthat took rootin that Fond du Lac County community.

The Little White Schoolhouse, also known as the Birthplace of the Republican Party, at 305 Blackburn Street in Ripon. Citizens met here in 1854 to discuss the beginnings of the Republican Party.Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

There is a new generation of people coming along in the party, who think differently and are bringingnew ideas to the table, said former U.S. Rep Tom Petri, who represented the Ripon area for 36 years in Congress. They are the future, and I am hopeful.

Others see a breakup on the horizon as thenationexperiencesa new periodof political turbulence, not unlikepre-Civil War dayswhen the Whig Party disintegrated and the Republican Party rose to take its place.

For the first time in American history, a president was impeached twice by the House of Representatives. The most recent article of impeachmentchargesthat former President Donald Trumpincited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6before a violent mobinvaded the Capitol and left multiple dead.

As Trump's impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate starts Tuesday, the turmoil within the party is growing overTrump's role after hisdefeat in November and false claims of voter fraud. Trump himself hinted he might start a new political movement under the "MAGA Party" or "Patriot Party" banner, the Washington Post reported last month.

A sign outside the Little White Schoolhouse at 305 Blackburn St. in Ripon tells the story of the formation of the Republican Party.Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Ten Republicans in the House crossed party lines to vote with Democrats for impeachment, and even some of those who opposed impeachment condemned Trump and blamed him for sparking the insurrection. No Republicans supported his first impeachment in the the House in 2019. He was acquitted following a trial in the U.S. Senate in early 2020.

The latest impeachment vote demonstrates how challenging this year isfor Republicans. Fractures are visible over the members who voted to impeach Trump and comments made by a freshman lawmaker who previously called for the assassination of political leaders and pushed false and outlandish conspiracy theories.

Some see a split as inevitable.

I think theres a third party that will come out of the schism inside the GOP. And Ill be very blunt with you.I dont think it will be the largest of the two factions. I think the traditional Republicaneconomic, social and fiscal conservatism is basically dead," Rick Wilson, who co-foundedthe Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed to defeat Trump,told ABCaffiliate WFAA-TV.

Alvan Bovay, a New Yorker who moved to Ripon in 1850, had similar feelings about the Whig Party, which was weakened and divided over thornyissues like slavery.

During a trip back East, Bovay met with Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, the closest thing America had to a national newspaper at the time. He told Greeley he felt a new party should be created calledthe Republican Party.

Bovay returned to Ripon and pushed his idea, but without much success, Woolley said.

Then, an event occurred that changed the course of history.

In 1852, a slave named Joshua Glover escaped from his owner in Missouri and made it to Milwaukee. Two years later, federal marshals raided Glovers home and captured him.

The sight of Glover, bleeding and trussed up, finally put a face on slavery and the capture created outrage in Milwaukee and elsewhere. A crowd of 5,000 people staged an emotional protest. The next morning, a large band of citizens from Racine broke into the prison and rescued Glover, transporting him to Canada.

The people who rescued Glover were normal citizens who would otherwisenever even consider breaking the law, Woolley said. But the capture of Glover seemed so inhuman that, along with everything else, normally law-abiding citizens felt they could no longer put up with the existence of slavery. It was time to stop talking and start acting.

A monument stands outside the Little White Schoolhouse, also known as the Birthplace of the Republican Party, at 305 Blackburn St. in Ripon.Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Within a couple of days, Bovayhad the support he sought. Whigs, Democrats and Free Soilers came together at a long, contentious meeting heldMarch 20, 1854, in Ripons new, state-of-the-art schoolhouse.

Similar meetings followed across the upper Midwestand, in November,a national convention held in Pittsburgh created the Republican Party.

Six years later, the nation elected its first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

Though there is no "smoking gun" evidence of any connection between Bovays meeting in the schoolhouse and the rest of the events leading to the triumph of the party in 1860, the Ripon story is a good one, Woolley said.

It is a story of how a few concerned citizens in a tiny town saw a great moral wrong, and had the sense of compassion, courage and confidence to change history, he said.

Like Greeley, Tim Lyke was a newspaper publisher who commented on politics near and far.Lyke did so for31 yearsat the helm of theRipon Commonwealth Press, where he was proud to represent what he saw as Ripon's unique role in safeguarding Republicanvalues and tenets set down in those formative days. His family sold thepaperinDecember 2019 after 57 years of ownership.

Lyke, who calls himself a never-Trump Republican, believes the partys proud roots in abolitionism and civil rights have been undermined by the former president.

This was a party that believed in civil discourse and fancied itself the law-and-order party, but there has been no civility and no unity under this leadership,Lyke said. "Instead, it's become a party of obstruction of justice and not holding a leader accountable."

Trumps tactics and harsh opinions have split the party, Lyke said, between traditional Republicans and a more populist, disenfranchised group of people who are predominantly white working-class, nativistand distrustful of a government they believe is self-serving, corrupt and insensitive to the needs and concerns ofaverage families.

"Prior to social media, this population suffered in silence," he said. "Now, theyve not only found a savior in Donald Trump, who has played into their fears and insecurities, but have discovered places to convene with like-minded individuals on internet platforms, hearing their beliefs and concerns affirmed and amplified.

Similar to Lyke, Scott McCallum has experienced the tone changes and incivility firsthand. McCallum, who served as governor from 2001 to 2003, wasfirst elected to the state Senate in 1976 in a district that included Ripon. He won reelection twice before serving as lieutenant governorfrom 1987 to 2001.

McCallum, now an adjunct professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee,said he's watched for some time the frustrationsbrewinginAmericanswho feltleft behind bya "rapidly changing and moving, technology-driven economy."

Former Gov. Scott McCallum, right, talking with former Gov. Jim Doyle, says Republicans should take a more bipartisan approach to fixing problems.Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Trump pitted working people against non-working people, even though 50% of working-age people are not working because the system isnt working, McCallum said. This isnt a political issue; its peoples lives and we need to come together in a nonpartisan way to understand it and fix it.

After Democrat Tony Evers took office as governor in 2019, McCallum viewed it as an opportune moment for political leaders to unite. He spoke out publicly,telling Republicans they should back off and engage inbipartisan efforts.

I was viciously chastised for it," McCallum said. "Peoplein politics today are playing a game to win, and 'compromise' has become a bad word to both parties. Unfortunately, when winning becomes so important, we lose whats important for the country."

Some Republicans like ChrisVance, former chair of the Washington State Republican Party, are actively working tobuild a centrist/reformist alternative.

Hebelieves principled Republicans willing to put country before party need to encourage a split because, he told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, a united Republican Party led by Trump or someone like him is the greatest threat to freedom and democracy that America faces.

What America needs now are brave center-right leaders who are willing to create a movement that reflects the old Republican Party at its best, with an emphasis on freedom, economic growth, the rule of law and global leadership, said Vance, who is a senior fellow at a Washington D.C.-based think tank, theNiskanen Center.

In an op-edfor the Seattle Times, Vance pointed out that, until relatively recently, the nations political parties were constantly splitting up, realigning and reforming. The Federalist party broke up and vanished after the War of 1812. The Democratic Party split over the leadership of Andrew Jackson, eventually creating the Whig Party. The Whigs broke up in the 1850s over the issue of slavery, and the Republican Party emerged.

Republicans split in 1896, and again in 1912 as the Bull Moose Progressives followed Theodore Roosevelt out of the GOP. Southern Democrats split with their party over civil rights in 1948, 1960 and 1968, before ultimately migrating to the Republicans.

Petri, who represented the Ripon area in theHousefrom 1979 to 2015, says while political upheaval is not uncommon in history, he believes aparty split isnt the answer.

These sorts of things have happened before and they will happen again, he said. We have to learn from them, move forward and be stronger as a result.

Petri recalled that, as a young boy, he joinedAmericans inspired byRichard Nixon's famous "Checkers" speech in which the vice presidential candidate fended off accusations he took secret gifts from wealthy donors and indignantly refusedto return a beloved dog named Checkers a supporter had given his daughters.

The young Petri talkedhis mother into driving him to the Western Union office in downtown Fond du Lac, where he sent off a telegram to President Dwight Eisenhower, urging him to keep Nixon as his vice-presidential running mate. Eisenhower relented and kept Nixon on the ticket.

A lot of friendships crossed party lines during the early decades of Petri's longlegislative run. He says committees and committee chairpersons oncecontrolledthe flow of business in their jurisdictions, and brought legislation forward without the need for party leadership involvement.

I feel sorry for what people have to deal with in politics, and it has to do with the way communication has changed, Petri said. Lincoln himself used to write poison pen letters, but three days later, hed tear them up. Today, its too easy to push a button and send.

Still, he says he counts on the youths of today he sees working to evoke change. Petri serves on the advisory committee for the American Conservation Coalition a Republican pro-environmental group founded by Wisconsin activist Benji Backer.

Backer, a graduate of Appleton North High School, has been involved in politics sinceage 10. He says he wasinspired into activism by the late U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Many young Republicans dont like Trump and his cultish following, Backer said. We embrace issues like climate change, gay rights, improving race relations and allowing immigrants a path to citizenship that is productive and fair to those who want to make this country a better place.

The 23-year-old founded the American Conservation Coalition in 2016, during his freshman year at the University of Washington, right after Trump was elected.

Today, the organization has 300 chapters across the country and 12 staffers working to ignore the extremist noise, Backer said, and move conservative values forward that appeal to young Americans.

The reality is most Americans wantsolution that are somewhat near the center, and the government to stay out of their lives as much as possible, Backer said. If we can create a party that speaks to that middle and embraces common-sense principles, it would be unstoppable.

Contact her at 920-907-7936 or sroznik@gannett.com; follow her on Twitter at @SharonRoznik .

Published1:55 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2021Updated3:15 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2021

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As Donald Trump's impeachment trial begins, are Republicans headed for a split? The party's roots in Ripon could point the way forward - Wisconsin...