The Free-Soil Party:
"The Liberty Party is not dead, but
translated." Joshua Levitt
Began as a coalition of anti-slavery forces in the north
Liberty party members under Salmon P. Chase sanctioned the
coalition
Conscience Whigs (who couldn't tolerate textile and planter
coalition referred to as the Cotton
Whigs)
VanBuren faction of Democrats (the barnburners) who supported
the Wilmot Proviso and disliked southern dominance of the
party
Convention was held in Buffalo in August 1848: mass
"camp meeting convention" in the park while executive committee met
to do the real work
Fused together people who differed on issues such as
banking, tariffs, internal improvements by focusing on the major issue: slavery
Nominated Van Buren (Barnburner) for President, Charles Francis Adams (Conscience Whig) for
vice-president
Party Platform included:
exclusion
of slavery from the territories
abolition
of slavery only in Washington D.C.
"free
soil, free speech, free labor and free men"
cheap
postage
abolish unnecessary offices in the government
favored
internal improvements
payment of
the public debt
tariff for
revenue
Drove the slavery issue into the election , the other
two parties were trying to be evasive on the issue
Many democrats in the party returned to the Democratic
Party after their defeat in 1848
Kansas-Nebraska Act refocused sectional issues and
allowed for new organization of anti-slavery (extension of slavery that is)
elements (many smaller "independent" parties had been launched in
states
These elements organized in a mass meeting in Pittsburgh
to form the new National Republican Party
They consisted of Liberty, Free-soil, Old Whigs,
Know-Nothings, Barnburner Democrats and other disgruntled elements
1856 they nominated John C. Fremont, 1860 Abraham Lincoln
