John Nichols: Someone forgot to tell Mike Pence that the first Republicans were radicals – Madison.com

Bovay, a friend and associate of Greeley, had moved to Ripon a few years before he called the 1854 meeting. A veteran organizer who had led militant movements for land reform with the slogan, Vote Yourself a Farm Bovay had long advocated for the formation of an independent political movement with the purpose of gaining control of legislatures and the Congress in order to enact radical reforms.

At Bovays urging, Greeley popularized the new party, which drew in partisans from many political camps who were united in their opposition to the spread of slavery. Among the first Republicans were many allies and associates of socialist causes, including Joseph Weydemeyer, a former Prussian Army officer who would continue to correspond with Marx as he rose through the ranks as a military officer during the Civil War.

Decades after the founding of the new party, the great trade unionist and Socialist Party leader Eugene Victor Debs would reflect on the history in his speeches. Though he dismissed both major parties of the early 20th century as wings of the same bird of prey, Debs allowed as how, the Republican Party was once red.

There may have been a measure of hyperbole in that remark. But the fact is that the Republican Party that was founded in Ripon included plenty of people whose familiarity with radical ideas would alarm Mike Pence.

John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times and the author of "The S Word: A Short History of an American Tradition Socialism" (Verso); as well as the new book, "The Fight for the Soul of the Democratic Party: The Enduring Legacy of Henry Wallace's Anti-Fascist, Anti-Racist Politics" (Verso).

Originally posted here:

John Nichols: Someone forgot to tell Mike Pence that the first Republicans were radicals - Madison.com