Good morning, Whitewater
One more day of school, and then hundreds upon hundreds are on spring break. This cannot be, by any guess, the most productive academic day of the year, with so many looking to vacation.
There are no public meetings, either — you can safely enter this vacation with one less worry on your mind.
On this day in Wisconsin history, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society, in 1854, the Republican Party was founded:
On this date Free Soilers and Whigs outraged by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, met in Ripon to consider forming a new political party. The meeting’s organizer, Alvan E. Bovay, proposed the name “Republican” which had been suggested by New York editor Horace Greeley. You can see eyewitness accounts of the meeting, early Republican campaign documents, and other original sources on our page [Historical Society’s page] devoted to Wisconsin and the Republican Party. Though other places have claimed themselves as the birthplace of the Republican Party, this was the earliest meeting held for the purpose and the first to use the term Republican. [Source: History of Wisconsin, II: 218-219]