Hmm...
Birthplace. Of freedom

Lincoln won in 1860 and was the first Republican. Party was only six years old and made a president.

The image is pointing at a real historical event—but it’s simplified in a way that can be misleading if you take it at face value.

What’s accurate

The Republican Party was founded in 1854 in Ripon.

The early party formed in response to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which allowed the expansion of slavery into new territories.

Many early Republicans were explicitly anti-slavery expansion (not necessarily abolition everywhere, but strongly opposed to spreading it west).

What’s oversimplified or misleading

Saying the purpose was “to stop the Democrats” is anachronistic framing. Political parties in the 1850s were very different from today:

The Democratic Party at that time included many pro-slavery factions, especially in the South.

The Whig Party was collapsing, and many anti-slavery Whigs, Free Soilers, and others joined the new Republican Party.

It wasn’t a clean “Republicans good, Democrats bad” situation:

There were anti-slavery Democrats and pro-slavery politicians outside the Democratic Party.

The Republican Party’s early coalition was broad and politically messy.

Bottom line

The core claim—the Republican Party was founded largely to oppose the expansion of slavery—is historically solid.
But the meme reframes it using modern party identity and rivalry, which distorts how people at the time actually saw themselves.

For those of you who are old enough and from Wisconsin, you might recall that Ripon was also the home of Rippin' Good Cookies!

https://www.riponpress.com/news/thr...4fa7038-fd4e-11ec-9a65-7f48b27487fc.html

I will drive through Ripon on Saturday to head up to our WTA board meeting. I always smile and feel like I should have a cookie on my way through!

I believe you should have a dozen cookies on the way through Patrice

I appreciate your synapsis on this.And the clarification is very interesting as most of history is.

Sorry The Republican Party was originally founded in Crawfordville Iowa a month before Rippon.
just

I was there last year. Had a picture of myself right out in front.

That's Pretty Cool

I've never heard this, Bob. I'll have to look it up.