[Photo: American Republican Party Symbol] The American Republican Party was a minor nativist political organization that was launched in New York in June 1843, largely as a protest against immigrant voters and officeholders. In 1844, it carried municipal elections in New York City and Philadelphia and expanded so rapidly that by July, 1845, a national convention was called. This convention changed the name to the Native American Party and drafted a legislative program calling for a twenty-one-year period preceding naturalization and other sweeping reforms in the immigration policy. Failure to force congressional action on these proposals, combined with the growing national interest in the Mexican problem before the Mexican-American War, led to the party's rapid decline.