Yours is the politically correct version. But answer me this....since they were against Irish Catholic immigration, how could that be construed as "racist"? Is Catholicism genetic now? Are the Irish non-white all of a sudden?
And you do know that the Republican Party was essentially the merger of the Whigs, Free Soil and...the American Parties?
You knew that, right?
I stand by my comments.
Well, sort of. The Republican Party was formed when disgruntled members of the Whigs, Free Soil, Know-Nothings, and anti-slavery Northern Democrats defected and decided to form their own party. The only thing the defecting members of these four parties had in common was they were all anti-slavery people. The creation of the GOP was not a "merger" of those previous parties and didn't abolish them, it just took a significant chunk of their support.
In 1856, the Republican Party ran one ticket (Fremont/Dayton) while the Whigs & Know-Nothing Party ran a different joint ticket (Fillmore/Donolsen). The Republican Party, only two years old, got more votes for President than what was left of the Whigs/Know-Nothings and they went extinct shortly afterwards.
The GOP didn't adopt their familiar plank on immigration (control the borders, deport illegal aliens and make sure legal immigrants fully assimilate before they are granted citizenship) until the 1880s. Of course that still means the GOP has held the limited immigration position for about 125 years.