The Republicans held their first statewide convention on June 4, 1867, and John Keffer, a
Freedmen's Bureau agent, was made the first party's first chair. The party's entire state and congressional slate in the 1868 election was white.
The founding of the Alabama GOP (1854–1867) When the Republican Party was first organized in 1854 as an anti-slavery party, it did not compete in southern states such as Alabama. In its first three presidential elections (including
1864, in which Alabama did not participate due to the Civil War), the party did not even distribute ballots in Alabama for its presidential candidate. (At the time, ballots were not
printed by the government, but were distributed by parties for their supporters to drop into ballot boxes). After the Civil War and following Alabama's readmission to the union in 1868, Alabama was a Republican dominated state for much of the Reconstruction period due to a combination of factors including its support from north Alabama
unionists, poor white farmers who had never owned slaves, and the newly enfranchised black voters. Republican
Ulysses S. Grant carried the state in both the 1868 and 1872 presidential elections. One of the organizations that became the initial Alabama GOP, the
Union League, first came into north Alabama in 1863 as counties fell back under Union control during The Civil War. In early 1867, local Republicans gathered in several different meetings around the state. The first was in
Moulton, on January 8 and 9 in
Lawrence County, then March meetings in both Huntsville and Decatur, a gathering on March 25 in
Montgomery, and then May 1 in Mobile, all for the purpose of organizing an early summer state convention to create a state Republican Party. In a simultaneous meeting with the
Union League, the Republican Party of Alabama was initially organized on June 4–5, 1867. That first state convention was held in the capital city of Montgomery in the chambers of the Alabama House of Representatives. That convention was called the Union Republican Convention and consisted of 150 delegates, of whom 100 were black. Alabama Governor
Robert M. Patton spoke to the convention. Francis W. Sykes of Lawrence County was elected as chairman pro tempore, and Judge
William Hugh Smith of
Randolph County was named permanent chairman of the convention. The convention's delegates were mostly from two groups, the
Freedmen's Bureau (which included and/or represented most of Alabama's black citizens) and the
Union League which represented about the 1/3 of north Alabama's white citizens who had remained as
loyalists in the Civil War or had otherwise opposed secession in 1861. The convention adopted what was considered a liberal platform for the time including "equal rights for all men without distinction of color." The convention also endorsed the platform of the National Republican Party and supported free public education for all Alabamians. The convention established the first State Republican Executive Committee of 24 members. It included 12 prominent native Alabamians whom had mostly been
unionists. The other members included three carpetbaggers, five
African-Americans, and four otherwise unaffiliated and unidentified individuals.
Early history (1868–1890) In 1868,
William Hugh Smith was elected to a single two-year term as the state's first Republican governor. That same year saw Republican
Andrew Applegate elected as the first-ever lieutenant governor of Alabama under the state's newly adopted constitution of 1867. That first post Civil War legislature under the new constitution was elected in February, 1868, with a 100-member House of Representatives (two-year terms) composed of 97 Republicans and 3 Democrats. The State Senate (four-year terms) was even more lopsided, with a single Democrat to its 32 Republicans. to a Federal District Judgeship. Ironically, Johnson's frequent pro civil rights rulings from the bench would make him a hero to liberal Democrats and widely disliked in his own party. Johnson's owe father had briefly served in the state legislature as a Republican from 1942 to 1944.
The Goldwater Landslide and the modern GOP (1962–1972) The modern Republican Party in Alabama traces its roots back to the election of
John Grenier as State Party Chairman in 1962. That year Grenier with the support of the Alabama Young Republicans forced long-time Chairman Claude O. Vardaman into retirement without a contest. Grenier, along with a new generation of political activists played leading roles in re-organizing the party and moving beyond the "Post Office Republican" era. Determined to change the focus back to winning elections they recruited serious candidates for Congress in 1962. That year they nearly toppled U.S. Senator
Lister Hill with the candidacy of
James D. Martin in a controversial race that Republicans have always maintained was "stolen" in the dead of the night. Two years later most of those same candidates for Congress would run again in 1964, resulting in a Republican sweep of five of Alabama's eight congressional seats with victories by
Jack Edwards,
Glenn Andrews,
James D. Martin,
John Buchanan and
Bill Dickinson. He was defeated by
Tommy Tuberville on November 3, 2020. The GOP has won six consecutive races for attorney general dating back to 1994. Six of the eight seats on the
State Board of Education have elected Republicans. The
Alabama Supreme Court, State Appeals Courts, and the rest of the state judiciary are moving decisively to Republican dominance. All nine Supreme Court justices and the ten judges who sit on the two statewide appellate courts are all Republicans. The partisan line-up of Circuit Judges following the 2016 general election consists of 82 Republicans and 66 Democrats. However, the Democrats judgeships are increasing limited to urban area as 34 of their 66 judgeships are in just Jefferson and Montgomery counties, while the GOP judgeships are spread among 38 different counties. As of October 2017, the GOP has a majority on the district courts with 62 seats to the Democrats 42. It is all the more dramatic when one considers that there were less than one half dozen GOP judges in Alabama prior to 1986. As of March 1, 2016, of the 351 county commissioners in Alabama's 67 counties, the partisan breakdown is 183 Republicans and 168 Democrats. 37 Courthouses had Republican majority County Commissions, 28 had Democratic majorities, and 2 were evenly split. Of Alabama's 67 elected county school boards, the breakdown of seats heading into the 2016 General Election is 201 Republicans and 172 Democrats. However, the GOP has a majority on 33 of those boards and the Democrats also have a majority on 33 with one remaining board being evenly split in Pike County. ==Party chairman and officers==