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The Republican party has been prolific of additions to the Union and to the national domain. It came into existence in the midst of a struggle—and largely because of that struggle—over the creation of new western states, and through its far-seeing policies of granting homesteads to settlers, encouraging migration and immigration and providing transcontinental railroads to make the remotest regions accessible it promoted the development of wilderness territories into populous and prosperous commonwealths. Several of the western states, thus fostered by Republican statesmanship, were actually received into the Union under Democratic administrations, but their fitness for such reception was to be credited to the Republican party; while all the states but one taken into the Union since the Civil War were brought in by Republican Presidents and Congresses.

Minnesota in 1858, Oregon in 1859 and Kansas in 1861 entered the Federal Union under a Democratic administration, though the Republican party was even then a powerful influence in effecting those results. Nevada in 1864, Nebraska in 1867 and Colorado in 1876 were Republican creations. The four States of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington date from November, 1889 when a Republican