Unconditional Union Party | |
|---|---|
| Other name |
|
| Leader | Francis Preston Blair Jr. |
| Founded | 1861 |
| Dissolved | 1866 |
| Merger of | American Party Constitutional Union Party Republican Party War Democrats |
| Merged into | Democratic Party Republican Party |
| Ideology | Unconditional Unionism Abolitionism |
| National affiliation | National Union Party |
The Unconditional Union Party was a unionist political party in the United States during the American Civil War. Also called the Union Party, it was a regional counterpart to the National Union Party that supported the wartime administration of Abraham Lincoln.[1] The party was active in the border states and Union-occupied areas of the Confederacy. After the war, it formed the nucleus of the Republican Party in the Upper South; a minority joined the Democratic Party, notably including Francis Preston Blair Jr.[2][3]
Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 United States presidential election on a platform that called for the exclusion of slavery from the U.S. territories.[4] In the ensuing secession crisis, Southern Unionists resisted efforts to engineer the secession of the slave states and organize an independent Southern Confederacy. The unionist movement included conditional unionists who preferred a compromise consistent with southern interests but held out the possibility of secession as a last resort, as well as others whose commitment to the Union was unequivocal.[5] These latter unconditional unionists continued to oppose disunion following the commencement of hostilities in April 1861. Unionists in the border states formed political parties that contested critical elections preceding the July 4 emergency session of Congress and successfully foiled secessionist efforts to take their states out of the Union.[6]
The party attracted support from unionists of diverse partisan pedigrees, including former Know Nothings, Whigs, Republicans, and some unionist Democrats.[7] Initially hostile to abolitionism, by 1863, most Unconditional Unionists accepted the necessity of emancipation as a wartime exigency.[8] Unconditional Unionists attended the National Union Convention that nominated Lincoln and Tennessee unionist Andrew Johnson for the 1864 United States presidential election and supported the ticket in the fall campaign, completing the party's absorption into the National Union coalition.[9]
- ^ Smith, Adam I. P. (2006). No Party Now: Politics in the Civil War North. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 156.
- ^ McKinney, Gordon B. (1978). Southern Mountain Republicans, 1865-1900: Politics in the Appalachian Community. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. p. 31.
- ^ Foner, Eric (2014). Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877 (Revised ed.). New York: HarperPerennial. p. 339.
- ^ Proceedings of the Republican National Convention, Held at Chicago, May 16, 17 and 18, 1860. Chicago. 1860. p. 81.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Waugh, John C. (1997). Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency. New York: Crown Publishers. pp. 20–21.
- ^ McPherson, James M. (1988). Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 295n28.
- ^ Smith, 50.
- ^ Baker, Jean H. (1973). The Politics of Continuity: Maryland Political Parties from 1858 to 1870. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 84.
- ^ McKinney, 26–28.
© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search