Foundations:
The Republican party (often referred to the GOP-Grand Old Party) was founded in 1854 due to its opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska Act which sought to allow slavery in newly created American territories. An uprising against furthering the exploitation of slavery within these territories led to a rebellion that was the birth of the Republican party. Republicanism was the adopted name of the party whose name symbolized its beliefs about civic virtue, and opposition to aristocracy and corruption. The bedrock upon which the party was built was one of freedom and liberty.
On Liberty and equality:
Abe Lincoln layed the groundwork to the eventual demolition of slavery as he manuevered around the minefield of a country divided against itself. Abe Lincoln was a leader with core values, and who took the meaning of the Declaration of Independence at face value.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.(Declaration of Independence)
"Little by little, but steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been giving up the old for the new faith. Nearly eighty years ago we began by declaring that all men are created equal; but now from that beginning we have run down to the other declaration, that for some men to enslave others is a 'sacred right of self-government.' These principles cannot stand together. They are as opposite as God and Mammon; and whoever holds to the one must despise the other." (Abraham Lincoln)
The value and fruit of labor:
Lincoln's values came from a wellspring of his beliefs. Whether the fruit of one's hands or the golden rule (doing unto others as you would have them do unto you), greater values were etched upon his heart.
"Lincoln felt strongly about the essential importance of labor to society and liked to make it concrete by referring to the injunction on work in
Genesis. He had known in early life what it meant to earn bread in the sweat of his brow. He was offended by the arrogant complacency of the planter interests and especially by their mouthpieces in the clergy." Mr. Lincoln understood that fundamental to one's attitude toward slavery was one's willingness to let others' sweat on one's behalf. Indeed, work was as fundamental a value as freedom, argued Mr. Lincoln.
In 1854, Mr. Lincoln wrote: "The ant, who has toiled and dragged a crumb to his nest, will furiously defend the fruit of his labor, against whatever robber assails him. So plain, that the most dumb and stupid slave that ever toiled for a master, does constantly know that he is wronged. So plain that no one, high or low, ever does mistake it, except in a plainly selfish way; for although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself."
http://www.mrlincolnandfreedom.org/inside.asp?ID=1&subjectID=1"In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free,--honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve."
It is my great hope that the Republican party not only defends its core values but does not allow itself to be redefined by its detractors--or even worse, compromise. Lincoln knew sometimes compromise was not only impossible, but wrong. I hope we all never forget it.
