History
The Iowa Republican Party was founded on an anti-slavery platform in 1856 by citizens dissatisfied with the existing Whig and Democratic Parties. Samuel J. Kirkwood, abolitionist and later Iowa's Civil War governor, is credited as one of the principal founders. Summoned from his mill at Coralville and still coated in flour dust, Kirkwood gave a rousing speech at the founding meeting of the Republican Party of Iowa in February 1856 in Iowa City. Many people credited Kirkwood’s speech and subsequent work with the success of the party in Iowa. Another principal founder was Edward Russell, an outspoken abolitionist editor who later turned the Davenport Gazette into an award-winning Republican newspaper and one of the largest dailies in Iowa. At the Replican State Convention in 1865, Russell introduced the resolution declaring negro suffrage in Iowa and carried it by a decisive majority. His more famous son, Charles Edward Russell, went on to found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Pro-Union sentiment during and after the Civil War helped the party to expand in importance. Between 1858 and 1932 the Republicans won every Iowa gubernatorial election, with the exception of 1890, when Horace Boies, a former Republican, was elected because of his opposition to Prohibition. In 1932 electoral frustration with the Great Depression and Prohibition led to the re-emergence of the Democratic Party in Iowa. Historically the party has held the Governor's office – 30 of Iowa's 41 governors have been Republicans.
Read more about this topic: Republican Party Of Iowa
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