Serious question, why are we still calling them republicans? I don't understand this, they aren't republicans. I could at the very least respect some of the things they used to stand for. That's gone the way of the dodo
@Idissent "Meanwhile, other Whigs were getting swept up in anti-immigrant, nativist movements like the Know Nothings, a secret society that grew to become a political force in the 1850s. Fillmore, who had been dumped by the Whigs in 1852, ran in 1856 as the nominee of the American Party, the political wing of the Know Nothings. Many conservative Whigs followed him."
source:
@JeniRizio
Thank you for this!! Very interesting
@Idissent https://www.history.com/news/whig-party-collapse
Anti-slavery Whigs, deciding that their party wasn’t sufficiently committed to halting the spread of slavery, splintered off and formed the Republican party along with anti-slavery Democrats. Among the former prominent Whigs who turned Republican were Thaddeus Stevens, William Seward and Abraham Lincoln.