On March 20, 1854, in Ripon, Wisconsin, several dozen citizens, alarmed by the prospect of slavery spreading westward, gathered in a little white schoolhouse, a meeting widely believed to be the birthplace of the Republican Party. Correspondent Mo Rocca looks at how the Grand Old Party was formed and how it was dominant in presidential politics in the years following the Civil War, until Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression.
Air Date: Jul 15, 2024