The Free Soil Party Explained

Mr. Beat tells you everything you need to know about the Free Soil Party, the most important single-issue third party in American history.

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Produced by Matt Beat. Music by Daniel Lewis Diedrich. All images and video either by Matt Beat, found in the public domain, or used under fair use guidelines.

Sources:

J.R. LeMaster and Donald D. Kummings, eds., Walt WhitmanAn Encyclopedia (New YorkGarland Publishing, 1998)

It all started in 1848, with the New York State Democrats. Known as “Barnburners,” they walked out of the states Democratic Party convention after those dang Hunkers voted against the Wilmot Proviso, a proposed law that would have banned slavery in all territory gained by winning the Mexican American War. The “Hunkers” were for the expansion of slavery out west, so they obviously opposed the Wilmot Proviso. The Barnburners were for it, and even were against Lewis Cass, the Democratic Party nominee for President, who proposed popular sovereignty to determine how slavery expanded out west.

So yeah, those Barnburners walked out, leaving the Democratic Party to knock on the door of the Conscience Whigs, or anti-slavery faction of the Whig Party. The Barnburners said, “want to start a new political party?” The Conscience Whigs were like “heck yeah dudes, but let’s get some more people.” So those two groups knocked on the door of the Liberty Party, an abolitionist political party that had existed for 8 years. The Barnburners and Conscience Whigs were like “want to join us so you actually have a chance to win a Presidential election?” and most of the Liberty Party folks said “sure, why not?”

So together they formed the Free Soil Party, holding their first convention on August 9, 1848 in Buffalo, New York. Their slogan? “Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor, and Free Men.” Hey...wait a second...what about women? Anyway, they nominated Martin Van Buren for President, the New York native and former President who had lost his re-election bid back in 1840. Noble dudes present at the convention included Salmon Chase, John Hale, and even Walt Whitman.

The Free Soil Party was a pragmatic party. They weren’t necessarily calling for the end of all slavery, although that would be nice. They realized much of the South depended on slave labor. However, they all agreed there were enough slave states. No more! Oh, and several of them opposed slavery not for moral reasons, but because they didn’t want white laborers to have to compete with slaves out west. When some called for giving blacks the right to vote as part of the Free Soil Party’s platform, it actually got shot down. They had issues other than slavery. For example, they wanted more government money for infrastructure, a homestead law, and a way to pay off the debt and a new tariff to pay for it. Tariffs. Ew.

So back to their Presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren, going for re-election again in the election of 1848, which you can find more about here. Go watch it and come back. Everyone else here will wait for you. Ok, thanks for doing that. Now, as you saw in that video, Van Buren lost the election of 1848, getting 10.1% of the popular vote and no electoral votes. But hey, guess what? The Free Soil Party was able to get 12 members elected to Congress that same election, as well as several more members getting elected to state government positions. Most importantly, the party had made slavery a central issue in American politics and raised awareness of the anti-slavery cause.

So the Free Soil Party kept building. However, their momentum came to a quick halt in 1850, thanks to the Compromise of 1850 (sing), which the Free Soil Party officially did not approve of, as it vowed to never compromise on the issue of slavery. I also made a horrible video about the Compromise of 1850, but basically you need to know at this very moment that it was a huge way to at least temporarily calm both the North and South down about the slavery issue. Because it did calm both sides down, the Free Soil Party lost a lot of members. Most Barnburners went back to the Democratic party and most Conscience Whigs went back to the Whig Party. So the moderates left the party, leaving only the hardliner and passionate abolitionists.