Birthed from the Abolitionist Movement

Review By Dean Dexter

Former New Hampshire Governor Hugh Gregg and his associate Georgi Hippauf, have published an exhaustive outline of the Republican Party's origins in New Hampshire. In doing so, they also make a convincing case for Mr. Gregg's long-time argument that the Grand Old Party did indeed see its first organizational meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire on October 12, 1853. This was less than a year before any other such gathering took place in the country.

Acting as midwife at the party's birth, the authors contend, was Amos Tuck, teacher, lawyer, three-term Congressman and friend of Abraham Lincoln. Tuck early on became involved in the insurgent movement against the then-dominant Democratic party over the issue of slavery. Years before the fateful meeting in Exeter, Tuck broke ranks with Concord's Franklin Pierce - then the most prominent politician in the state and head of the Democratic Party - when Pierce denied Tuck