<P> The party has won 24 of the last 40 presidential elections and there have been a total of 19 Republican Presidents, the most from any one party . The first was 16th President Abraham Lincoln, who served from 1861 until his assassination in 1865; and the most recent being 45th and current president Donald Trump, who took office on January 20, 2017 . </P> <P> As of 2018, the Republican Party is the primary party in power in the United States, holding the presidency (Donald Trump), majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, a majority of governorships and state legislatures (full control of 32 / 50, split control of five others). Furthermore, the GOP presently hold "trifectas" (the executive branch and both chambers of the legislative branch) in a majority of states (26 / 50) and a "trifecta plus" (executive, legislative and judicial branches) at the federal level (as Republican Presidents appointed five of the nine Supreme Court justices). </P> <P> Founded in the Northern states in 1854 by anti-slavery activists, modernizers, ex Whigs and ex Free Soilers, the Republican Party quickly became the principal opposition to the dominant Democratic Party and the briefly popular Know Nothing Party . The main cause was opposition to the Kansas--Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas . The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil . The first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20, 1854 in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin . The name was partly chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jefferson's Republican Party . </P> <P> The first official party convention was held on July 6, 1854 in Jackson, Michigan . By 1858, the Republicans dominated nearly all Northern states . The Republican Party first came to power in the elections of 1860 when it won control of both houses of Congress and its candidate, Abraham Lincoln, was elected President . It oversaw the preserving of the Union, the end of slavery and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction (1861--1877). </P>

Who was the founder of republican party of usa
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