Editor’s note: The following commentary was submitted for publication by the Jefferson County Republican Party.
Despite a warning from the National Parks Service, the Ripon Chamber of Commerce moved the birthplace of the Republican Party outside of Ripon’s historical district on Monday, April 17, placing the Little White Schoolhouse on an empty lot between a car dealership and fast food restaurant. The unilateral decision delisted the site from the National Registry of Historic Places. That designation – which locally includes Aztalan State Park — protects the unique cultural places integral to our nation’s history.
The Jefferson County Republican Party is disappointed that the chamber of commerce planned the move for months without seeking the advice of local Republican Party. The Fond du Lac GOP Chairman happens to live next door to the former site and was tipped off to the move last week.
Jefferson County Chairman Brian Norby says: “We hope the Ripon chamber will reconsider this decision and perhaps state leaders or someone else might assist in purchasing and relocating the building to a more appropriate site and restore the building’s designation to the National Registry of Historic Places. The birthplace of the Republican Party is indisputably important for all Americans and requires preservation.”
The Little White Schoolhouse is where sixteen former members of the Whig, Democrat and Free Soil parties met on March 20th, 1854, to form the new Republican Party as a means to abolish slavery. The Republican Party has a rich history of civil rights activism, passing the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments abolishing slavery, and creating standards of equality before the law, leading the women’s suffrage movement, promoting smaller and local governance, protecting the poor from exploitation by the rich, and free enterprise for all. Today, the GOP continues those traditions by fighting for the civil rights to the tiniest, frailest, and poorest of people – born and unborn, regardless of race, gender, class or circumstance of their conception.
The Ripon Chamber of Commerce has owned the schoolhouse for about 20 years and sold the land under the building to a local Boys and Girls Club. A letter from the Wisconsin Historical Society warned the chamber that the proposed move would delist the building from the National Registry of Historic Places – essential to preserving all historical sites in America. The Ripon Chamber of Commerce ignored the historical and future implications.
The birthplace of the GOP. Photo by Jonathunder – Own work, GFDL 1.2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28807154. The full Wikipedia post about the schoolhouse is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_White_Schoolhouse.
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