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The Free Soil Party, also called the Free Democratic Party or the Free Democracy, [3] was a political party in the United States from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was focused on opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States .
To them [Free Soil Democrats] the movement to acquire Texas, and the fight over the Wilmot Proviso, marked the turning point, when aggressive slavemasters stole the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and began dictating the course of the nation's destiny. [22] Historian William Cooper presents the exactly opposite Southern perspective:
At the 1848 presidential election, the Barnburners left the Democratic Party, refusing to support presidential nominee Lewis Cass. They joined with other anti-slavery groups, predominantly the abolitionist Liberty Party and some anti-slavery Conscience Whigs from New England and the Midwest, to form the Free Soil Party. This group nominated ...
The party also controlled the Tennessee legislature and received at least 45% of the vote in multiple southern states, far better than the Whig Party following 1848. [4] The party then succeeded in electing Nathaniel P. Banks as Speaker of the House in the 34th Congress. [5] However, the party started to break apart at sectional lines over slavery.
The "Free Soil" element emphasized that rich enslavers would move into new territory, use their cash to buy up all the good lands, then use enslaved people to work the lands, leaving little opportunity room for free farmers. By 1854, the Free Soil Party had largely merged into the new Republican Party. [3]
The Free Soil Party was still the strongest third party in 1852. However, following the Compromise of 1850, most of the "Barnburners" who supported it in 1848 had returned to the Democratic Party while most of the Conscience Whigs rejoined the Whig Party. The second Free Soil National Convention assembled in the Masonic Hall in Pittsburgh ...
The Free Soil Party of 1848–52, and the new Republican Party after 1854, demanded that the new lands opening up in the west be made available to independent farmers, rather than wealthy planters who would develop it with the use of slaves forcing the yeomen farmers onto marginal lands. [20]
Hale helped establish the anti-slavery Free Soil Party and was a candidate for the party's presidential nomination in 1848, but the 1848 Free Soil Convention instead nominated former President Van Buren. He won the party's presidential nomination in 1852, receiving 4.9% of the popular vote in