Joshua Glover and Wisconsin’s ties to the founding of the Republican Party
By Gerard Randall former 2024 Republican Host Committee Secretary
The United States Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act on September 18, 1850.
The act mandated that escaped slaves be returned to their masters, and that any officials as well as regular citizens in northern states, must comply with the law. The act energized those opposed to slavery to all the more fervently fight for its abolition.
Joshua Glover was a Missouri slave who escaped from captivity and settled in Racine, WI in 1852. While in Racine, Glover worked at a local saw mill as a laborer and carpenter.
Utilizing the Fugitive Slave Act, slave holder Benjamin Stone Garland sought to retrieve and enslave Glover in 1854 by organizing a posse of slave catchers.
The group with the help of St. Louis police officers and federal marshals executing a warrant for the return of Glover to Garland, arrested Glover in Racine on March 10, 1854. Tragically, Glover had been betrayed by someone who had also been a slave with him in Missouri and revealed Glover’s whereabouts to Garland.
Glover was badly beaten and moved to a jail in Milwaukee on March 11, 1854, which was located on what is now Cathedral Park (across from the Roman Catholic Cathedral and Elsa’s Restaurant). Word of the capture and near death beating of Glover spread throughout the abolitionists’ community. Led by Sherman Booth editor of the Wisconsin Free Democrat, more than 5,000 anti-slavery protesters gathered outside the jail holding Glover and demanded his release. They were rebuked and later stormed the courthouse jail using any available instruments to free Glover from captivity and enable his ultimate escape to Canada.
Remembering and emboldened by the rescue of Glover, a small group of abolitionists met on March 20, 1854 in Ripon, WI (approximately 90 miles northwest of Milwaukee), in what has become known as the “Little White Schoolhouse”, to form the national Republican Party.
This seminal moment in our nation’s partisan politics was spurred by a grassroots movement 170 years ago.
How fitting that the national convention for the Republican Party will meet in Milwaukee on July to select its candidates for President and Vice President of the United States and celebrate its beginning just a few miles from the birthplace. The convention will generate more than $250,000,000 in economic impact for the Southeastern Wisconsin region over the next several years, especially for the local hospitality industry.
Wisconsin has a rich and noble heritage of securing freedom for the dispossessed, disenfranchised, displaced and enslaved. Racine, Kenosha, Beloit and Waukesha (home of the abolitionist supporting Waukesha Freeman newspaper) were Underground Railroad stops for those seeking freedom from slavery, which operated mostly in the mostly southern United States.
It has been an honor for me to have played a significant role in securing the Republican National Convention for Milwaukee. We should all welcome this opportunity to showcase Milwaukee’s amenities and talents as we seek to build a more vibrant, inclusive and attractive local economy and society.
