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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 .
The National Liberty Party attracted sparse support; Smith received votes in only four states, including his native New York, where he polled 2,454 votes (0.56%). [27] The Free Soil platform of 1848 provided the policy basis for the antislavery coalition that would come to power in the election of 1860 as the Republican Party. [28]
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]
Merged into: Free Soil Party and Republican Party: 1840 1848 Know Nothing Party: 1845–1860 Nativism [76] Merged into: Constitutional Union Party (South) and Republican Party (North) 1844 1860 Free Soil Party: 1849–1857 Abolitionism [77] Merged into: Republican Party: 1848 1855 Union Party: 1851–1853 Conditional unionism [78] 1850 1853 ...
It vigorously argued that free market labor was superior to slavery and was the very foundation of civic virtue and true republicanism; this was the "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men" ideology. [13] Without using the term "containment", the Republican Party in the mid-1850s proposed a system of containing slavery.
After 1848, the party's grassroots infrastructure was absorbed into the Free Soil Party, and the loyalty of most Liberty leaders and voters transferred to the new organization. A remnant led by Smith and Goodell persisted until 1860 under various names. From his seat in the Senate, Chase emerged as one of the leaders of the Free Soil Party.
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]
The Union Party, formed in support of the Compromise of 1850, won 15 seats in the South, while the anti-Compromise Southern Rights Party won 8. The Free Soil Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery into the Western territories, lost five seats and was reduced to four Representatives, all in New England.