The Birthplace of the Republican Party

The Republican Party of the United States was founded in a small white schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin on March 20, 1854, at a meeting of anti-slavery activists who were dissatisfied with both the Whig and Democratic parties' positions on the expansion of slavery into new territories. The group adopted the name Republican as a reference to Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican Party. The party nominated Abraham Lincoln for president six years later, and Lincoln's election triggered the secession of the Southern states and the Civil War.

Source: Wikipedia