The founders of what was to become the Republican Party first met at a Congregational Church in Ripon Wisconsin in February of 1854 to deal with their growing alarm over the spread of slavery.  The men and women in attendance were the sons and daughters of the Northwest Ordinance which established how the states of Illinois, Indiana Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and parts of Minnesota would be founded as forever free from slavery.

The Northwest Ordinance, which predates the Constitution, was a template for state development based on freedom, public literacy and a sound government under the direction of an informed and engaged citizenry.

Though tragically slavery continued to spread through the south and the resentment against it was temporarily kept in check by the Missouri Compromise, by 1854 the outrageous Fugitive Slave Act and the open conflict over slavery in Kansas-Nebraska had shown the slave system was seeking unchecked power over the entire nation.

Much of the Republican Platform from 1856 at its first party convention reads like something written about America in the summer of 2020 and the anti-Constitutional actions taking place under Joe Biden and the Democrats:

Murders, robberies, and arsons have been instigated and encouraged, and the offenders have been allowed to go unpunished;

That all these things have been done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the present National Administration; and that for this high crime against the Constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign (to call the accused to answer charges) that Administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists, and accessories, either before or after the fact, before the country and before the world; and that it is our fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of these atrocious outrages and their accomplices to a sure and condign (well deserved) punishment.

The heart of the GOP has always been the freedom of all men and women, of all generations, and a nation that protects their God given Rights.

When the GOP is in power it can be compromised by individuals and groups who are only seeking personal and political gain at the expense of the Republican citizen.

But, because of the strength of its founding principals, the GOP has the ability to reform and rise whenever free men and women of faith and conviction build anew upon its firm foundation