Online Archive of University of Virginia Scholarship
Conservative to the Last Degree: The Emerging Illinois Republican Party and the Election of 1856342 views
Author
Iverson, Ian, History - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Virginia
Advisors
Varon, Elizabeth, History, University of Virginia
Abstract
Far from united at the outset, the mostly conservative opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act drew together only reluctantly, as a defensive measure against the perceived aggressions of the Slave Power and endorsed a political program of restoration. Capturing the contingencies of this moment, this thesis argues that mainstream Illinois Republicans sought to capitalize on their state’s antislavery consensus while maintaining an authentically conservative defense of the Union. The moderation of this state Republican platform compelled Illinois Democrats, led by Stephen A. Douglas, to moderate their position on slavery to appeal to anti-extensionist voters, a decision which fostered sectional cohesion in the North at the expense of the national Democratic party. This race to the ideological center, begun in the summer of 1856, would continue through the presidential contest of 1860.
Degree
MA (Master of Arts)
Keywords
Republican Party; American Civil War; Abraham Lincoln; Stephen Douglas; Lyman Trumbull; Orville H. Browning
Iverson, Ian. Conservative to the Last Degree: The Emerging Illinois Republican Party and the Election of 1856. University of Virginia, History - Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, MA (Master of Arts), 2020-04-20, https://doi.org/10.18130/v3-hxmc-3p12.