Little White Schoolhouse, birthplace of the Republican Party
on March 20, 1854 in Ripon, WI. The structure was built in its original location in 1853 as a school building for the young
town of Ripon.   
   

In Ripon, Wisconsin, former members of the Whig Party met to
establish a new party to oppose the spread of slavery into the
western territories. The Whig Party, which was formed in 1834
to oppose the “tyranny” of President Andrew Jackson, had
shown itself incapable of coping with the national crisis over
slavery.

With the successful introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill
of 1854,  that dissolved the terms of the Missouri Compromise
and allowed slave or free status to be decided in the territories
by popular sovereignty, the Whigs disintegrated. 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
(above).

The U.S. Congress IN 1807 passed an act to “prohibit the importation
of slaves into any port or place within the jurisdiction of the United
States…from any foreign kingdom, place, or country.”

TIM MAGUIRE

Author Alice Malsenior Tallulah-Kate Walker is 78 today.

The first organized immigration of freed enslaved people to Africa
from the United States departed New York harbor on a journey to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa. The immigration was largely
the work of the American Colonization Society, a U.S. organization founded in 1816 by Robert Finley to return formerly enslaved
African people to Africa. However, the expedition was also partially funded by the U.S. Congress, which in 1819 had appropriated
$100,000 to be used in returning displaced Africans, illegally
brought to the United States after the abolishment of the slave
trade in 1808, to Africa.

The program was modeled after British’s efforts to resettle formerly enslaved people in Africa following England’s abolishment of the
slave trade in 1772.

Most Americans of African descent were not enthusiastic to
abandon their homes in the United States for the West African
coast.

President Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation.

On January 1, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation. Attempting to stitch together a nation mired in
a bloody civil war, Abraham Lincoln made a last-ditch, but
carefully calculated, decision regarding the institution of
slavery in America.