The natal chart of the Republican Party

FROM Penelope, I have the chart for the Republican Party:  February 28, 1854, Ripon, Wisconsin.  Penelope gave the time as “noon”.  I decided to see if I could do better.
I first went to the Wiki site for Ripon, WI, where I learned the meeting was held at a schoolhouse, which still stands, though not at its original location.  Since schoolhouses are usually in use during most days of the week, I needed to find out what day of the week February 28th was.  I got that from Ancestor Search, though an ephemeris of the period would have done as well.
Turns out, the day was a Tuesday.  A school day.  I presumed the school day in small towns in Wisconsin was more or less the same as it was when I was in school in Kansas, from, say, 8:00 am to, say, 3:00 pm, give or take half an hour on either side.  Thereafter kids came home to their waiting mothers, and if that sounds like the Cleavers, well, it’s supposed to.
Ripon was a new town, only having been settled six years earlier.  The school house was perhaps a year old.  The community presumably served the surrounding farmers.  In February most farmers are inactive, except the dairymen, who work year round, generally at sunrise and sunset.  And there would have been dairy.
So our next question is what time the sun sets in Ripon on February 28 of any given year.  Which a standard astrology chart will give us:  Set the sun on the 7th house cusp, read off the time.  More or less, that’s sunset.  Which was about 5:40 pm (CST, as I forgot to set things in LMT).
So the setting was a schoolhouse, the day was a school day as well as a work day.  School ends late in the afternoon, children return home, the evening meal is prepared, the head of the house returns, food is eaten, the dairy men milk the cows and put them away for the night, and only then can evening activities begin.  The first meeting of what was to be the Republican party thus begins no earlier than 7:00 pm.
I am unable to determine what, if anything, happened during this epochal meeting.  Some thirty people attended.  Presumably there were speeches, comments from the floor, debates, motions that were defeated or approved, etc.
In other words, time passed.  Presumably once a final resolution of some sort had been agreed upon, the meeting ended.  For a meeting starting around 7:00 pm, an hour does not sound long enough.  If the meeting was brief, it would most likely have been noted as such.  On the other hand, meetings that last three hours or longer are generally remembered as tiresome and, oftentimes, contentious.  Presuming the people who met were more or less like-minded (people in small towns are often like-minded), two hours, more or less, is often enough to get the job done.
By this method of deduction, it is reasonable to take Penelope’s noon chart and set it for 9:00 pm, the approximate conclusion of the meeting, the time when a final result, whatever it may have been, was agreed upon.
Other details:  The dogs that did not bark.  Snows in Wisconsin can be fierce.  If there was snow, there would have been no school, which means the men could have met at any time of the day, except that if there was no school, there would not have been much of any activity in Ripon on the day.  So we may presume the streets were clear and that classes had previously been held.
Second, these men were presumably godless heathens, as you will note the meeting was held in a schoolhouse, rather than a church.  I am glad they did not meet in a church, as it would have been nearly impossible to establish the time of the meeting if they had.  It was a new town and there may not have been a suitable church building, or it may be the promoters were not associated with any of the local clergy, or it may be they were serious about Church/State separation.  It is said they took the name of their new party, Republican, from the Declaration of Independence.  Which is as much a list of grievances as a statement of principles, but it might be they had the First Amendment in mind as well.

With these preliminaries out of the way, we can now examine the chart, the result of these men’s work on that night.
Set for 9:00 pm — which is an approximation — the chart has cardinal signs on the angles, indicating great strength and dynamism.  Libra rises, showing a desire for equality (these were anti-slavery men), but underneath a placid exterior, Libras will manipulate others to get what they want.  This should be kept in mind.
Chart ruler Venus is exalted in Pisces. Which, by comparison to the signs it actually rules (Taurus and Libra), Venus in Pisces is over the top, overdone, over-ripe, excessively idealistic.  With Venus in Pisces are the Sun, Neptune and Mercury.  Which is a pronounced religious fervor and a willingness to sacrifice, even face martyrdom, even in defiance of common sense, which a debilitated Mercury in Pisces notably lacks.
Now look where this falls in the chart:  At 9 pm, as well as at 8 pm, Pisces falls on the cusp of the 6th, and 8 pm and 9 pm, Venus and the Sun fall outside of the 6th.  I have said before that planets falling on the wrong side of the cusp are ne’er-do-wells, that they will try all the harder to prove their bona fides.  Which is the case here.
What is the sixth house?  S L A V E R Y .  The men who met that night were ideologically driven to rid the world of that scourge, even at the cost of their own lives, as shown by the Sun’s own position.  Cardinal signs on the angles, they would do whatever was necessary.  Chart ruler Venus, as well as the Sun in Pisces, they would be indiscriminate as to the means, as well as tend to excuse themselves with endless religious rationalizations.
Now look across the chart and find Mars opposing from Virgo.  They knew they would be confronted, they expected to pay the ultimate price. They could rationalize and say that as Mars was in the sign of Mercury, and as Mercury was on friendly terms with Venus, that they had a “spy in the enemy camp,” which so far as the Civil War went, may well have been true.  People do not consciously rationalize their actions with astrology (as I have done here), but, knowingly or not, they invariably make full use of their charts.  
This chart may be analyzed for its role in the Civil War (the election of Abraham Lincoln as the party’s first president may well rectify it precisely), but my immediate goal is the present day.  Just as Venus wants to be in the 6th house, Mars wants to be in the 12th.  Mars in the 12th is a strategist.  The best military men, the best chess players, invariably have Mars in the 12th:  It keeps their plans secret.  
In Virgo, these plans are detailed and precise.  Mars retrograde, they are wrong.  Opposed to Mercury, they run counter to logic.  Opposed to the Sun, they are hostile to life itself.  Opposed to Pisces, they are ugly and contrary to religious principles.
But, using whole sign aspects (and why not?), Mars is supported by trines from Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Pluto.  The trine from Saturn, while wide, is particularly telling:  Even my enemy likes me.  (Saturn and Mars hate each other.)  The Pisces-Virgo opposition is the major source of dynamic energy in the Republican chart.

A chart with cardinal signs on the angles, ruled by Venus in transcendent Pisces, backed up by the vitality of Sun, deluded by Neptune, saddled with a debilitated Mercury, forever irked by Mars (off in his own corner laughing at them), is, in sum, a chart that believes in its divine right to rule, regardless of the opposition it engenders.
Once the issue of slavery had been dealt with (no, it was not really, it is still an open sore, but enough of this!), the chart of the Republican party takes on an interesting new life.
All the planets that want to be in the 6th house shift from the issue of slavery, to the unwashed workers, the serfs.  As in, We know what’s best for you.  Which makes the Republican party a neo-Church, with all the rights and trappings of a proper religion.  Party members become True Believers, party ideology is unquestioned, people find a “home” in their political church, etc.
Critically, as with the Church itself, moral welfare becomes more important than physical well-being.  Having the right beliefs becomes more important than being well-off.  The Republican party thus fundamentally confuses the role of the Church with the role of the State.  You will note the intensely religious fervor Lincoln’s Republican government generated during the Civil War.
This should be a minor thing, that even with a religious orientation (note debilitated Mercury in religious Pisces ruling the 9th house of religion) the overall aim of a political party is, in the end, political rule, and it would have come to pass, but for the critical position of Saturn.
In the Republican chart, Saturn is in Taurus in the 8th.  Saturn in Taurus is insecure and greedy and grasping.  If it were in the second house it would toil ceaselessly for a pittance, eventually rising to great wealth.
In the 8th, Saturn steals.  Okay, you know this already, but look what happens when we set the chart in motion:
Saturn has rights in Libra, as chart co-ruler.  As such, Saturn rationalizes his theft as the way things should be.  He looks immediately to his proper ruler, Venus.  In exaltation as well as sextile by sign, Venus gives her assent.
Which is to say that workers (6th house) should be happy (Pisces) with ideals, not money (Taurus/8th).  Money belongs to Saturn, not to them.  Why do Republicans hate trade unions? Because Pisces, as a sign, is
disorganized. That’s the way workers should be. Good little fish. A school of fish.
Saturn is then nudged by Jupiter.  Jupiter is in Capricorn.  Which is Saturn’s own sign, as well as the sign of Jupiter’s debility.  Capricorn is the sign of the government.  Whatever the government (Jupiter) has, is properly Saturn’s, as, debilitated in Capricorn, Jupiter cannot claim it as its own.  Thus we see the Republican tendency to grab the government’s money.  Which they were just as good at in the 1880’s as they were in the first decade of the 21st century.
Where does this money come from?  Two sources.  First, the 4th house is land, including real estate and mines.  Secondly, just as Saturn has rights in Libra, Venus has somewhat lesser rights (or perhaps, obligations) to Capricorn.  Venus in Pisces in the 6th permits money to be taken from workers and given to the government, which Jupiter then eventually gives to Saturn.  If Saturn and Venus were in true mutual reception, and if Venus was not lost in a weak cadent house, there would be “revenue sharing” between the two of them.  There is, instead, only a vague “noblesse oblige.”  A “trickle down,” if you will.  This is the best that can be done, the best the Republicans can do.
I have not spoken of the Moon in the chart, which is in Aries in the 6th.  Unless the degree on the ascendant should prove to be 5 Libra or less, the Moon has no rights in the 7th house.  Nor, being in Aries, is it properly part of the 6th.  Moon in Aries in the 6th is “mommy knows best,” even though, lacking support from elsewhere in the chart (square to a weak Jupiter, that’s it) she rarely does.  Her ruler is Mars, who wants to take both her, and himself, and hide away in the 12th.  Which makes the Republicans devoid of warmth, of emotional support, of caring.  The Republican religion is solar.  It is the Savior, dying on the Cross so that you, young worthless serf, might be spared.  Be happy with that.  The Virgin (the Moon) is nowhere in sight, but the Magdalene’s tears (Venus) might wash your feet (Pisces).

For a party that was founded with the Declaration of Independence in mind, there is a temptation to make the party’s ascendant match the July 4, 1776 Saturn, at 14-something Libra.  This is not necessary and would probably not be accurate.  There is the question in my mind, could the Republican party evolve into something a little less heartless, a little more generous?  At the age of 157, I am not hopeful.  Having lasted this long and having remained largely unchanged for its entire history, it looks set to continue.  Regardless of the fate of the country and people it rules, the party itself continues to go from strength to strength.  I say this, not as a party member (I am not), but as a realist.  

See this as part of the newsletter for the week of September 6, 2011.