Jacob Merritt Howard was at a convention in Jackson, Michigan on this day in 1854. It would be recorded as the first state-wide convention of the Republican Party. Those in attendance voted to accept Howard’s resolutions as the foundation for a national Republican party.

Howard was a native Vermonter. Today a marker stands for him in Shaftsbury, two miles from where he was born. Howard moved to Michigan, and became a lawyer and then a U.S. Senator.

It was Jacob Merritt Howard who was the sole author of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States.

The Vermont Book Of Days photo.