The Republican Party: General Issues, 1860-1868The Republican Party in the 1860s was known as the party most concerned with "civil rights" and the common American . This happened through a series of radical changes within the party that occurred during two major periods: the years 1860-1864 and 1864-1868. The changes within the party reflected the attitude of the North as opposed to that of the Confederate and Democratic South. The main issue that divided them was slavery and its implications for control of the nation. The best illustration of the party's anti-slavery sentiment (as opposed to abolitionism) in 1860 is the fact that, although the party was against slavery, it refused to attempt to eradicate it from areas where it was already here. For example, in the Republican Party platform for 1860, the party affirmed its abhorrence of slavery and declared that slavery should not be instituted in new territories, but it never attempted to prohibit it in the states of the South. "That the normal conditions of the entire territory of the United States are those of liberty...and we deny the authority of Congress, of any territorial legislature, or of any individual, to give existence to slavery in any "During the first four years of the 1860s, the North and the South went to war over these issues, with the Republican North emerging victorious. Although he worked with an anti-slavery agenda, President Lincoln attempted to make a generous peace with the South, hoping to expand the power of the Republican Party with Southern support. be found in the fact that Confederate officials were not excluded from holding public office, that compensation for lost slaves was not excluded, and that Lincoln implied that he would be generous in granting pardons to rebel leaders. With the Emancipation Proclamation, Republicans gained freedom for slaves, but not social or political equality. During the years 1864-1868, the Republican program changed again with public opinion in the North to one of abolition. In its platform for the National Union Convention, the party affirmed its support for an amendment to "end and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits or jurisdiction of the United States." The 13th Amendment confirmed the death of slavery. However, the so-called "Black Codes" implemented by Southern governments forced abolitionist Republicans in Congress to oppose President Andrew Johnson over the passage of a new Freedmen's Bureau bill and of a civil rights law. This clash signified a division between the old Republican values ​​of tolerance and the new platform of slave rights..