In 1852 Alvan Earle Bovay of Ripon met with Horace Greeley in New York and advocated dissolving the Whig Party and forming a new party to unite anti-slavery elements, suggesting the name Republican because he believed it was a good name with charm and prestige. The opportunity came in January 1854 when Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, permitting slavery to extend beyond the limits of the earlier Missouri Compromise. Three months of debate over the bill caused upheaval in the existing political parties, and when it passed the Senate on March 3, 1854, Bovay promptly called a meeting of 53 voters in the little white schoolhouse to organize the new party. Bovay later recalled that those who entered were Whigs, Free Soilers, and Democrats, and those who emerged were Republicans, whom he called the first Republicans in the Union. On February 22, 1856, a convention at Pittsburgh established a national organization, and the name Republican was adopted for the new party; among those present were Horace Greeley and Abraham Lincoln.