Columnist Dean Karau revisits Republican Party's 1856 mass convention in Kewanee Star Courier The Founding Fathers distrusted political parties. Nevertheless, political divisions arose and political parties soon developed. First there were Federalists (strong central government) versus Jeffersonian Republicans (limited government). Then the former dissolved and the latter became Democratic-Republicans but evolved into the Democratic Party of Andrew Jackson, essentially today’s Democrats. Jackson’s opponents soon formed the Whig Party. In the 1850s, slavery and its expansion into new territories and states led to the formation of a new party comprised of Whigs, disgruntled northern Democrats, and others. The first meeting of what became the new Republican Party was in Ripon, Wisconsin, in the spring of 1854. Two months later in Jackson, Michigan, Republicans selected their first statewide candidates. The party held it’s first national organizing convention in Pittsburgh in February 1856, and its first nominating convention in Philadelphia in June 1856.