Free Soil Party
The Free Soil Party (also known under the names Freibodenmänner ; Nationalreformer ; Landreformer ; Freesoilers ) was a political faction of the Democratic Party in the northern states of the USA , which separated from it in 1848.
history
The party was founded on August 9, 1848 in Buffalo at a gathering of 20,000 delegates in a huge tent. The Free Soil Party was aimed primarily at the residents of the northern states and received support from the United States Whig Party but also the Democrats . The Liberty Party joined the movement and ran a joint candidate with John P. Hale for the presidential election of the same year . However, he and his running mate Charles Francis Adams lost the election against the Democrat Martin Van Buren, who later joined the Free Soil Party himself.
Goals of the party
One of the goals of the Freesoilers was to prevent the spread of slavery in the newly-added states . Other goals were to grant land free of charge to all farmers and to improve infrastructure , such as regulating navigable rivers, and improving ports at the expense of the government. In 1856, the Free Soil Party merged with the Republican Party under the Kansas-Nebraska Act . The Free Soil Party in New York State , which was called Barnburners (" barn burners "), dissolved as early as 1852. The party put up two of its own candidates in the presidential election : 1848 Van Buren and Adams and 1852 John Parker Hale and George Washington Julian .
Criticism from opponents
The Free Soil Party consciously distanced itself from the abolitionist movement , which opposed slavery for moral reasons. The arguments used were exclusively economic. As a result, the party reached the electorate for whom the abolitionists were too radical. The Free Soil Party has been attacked from various quarters for its stance. The abolitionists missed the basic ethical principles, while the slavery-advocate critics of the Free Soil Party insinuated that it would take no account of the interests of the slave owners. The abolition of the slave economy demanded by the Freesoilers and the free distribution of land to former slaves were seen as an attempt to break up existing land ownership structures. The possible fragmentation of large farms associated with such a land reform would make it easier to get hold of land (here: luring former slaves with quick money and selling them land reform areas).
See also
literature
- Jonathan H. Earle: Jacksonian Antislavery & the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854 . University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 2004, ISBN 0-8078-5555-3
- Eric Foner: Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men. Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War . OUP, London 1971, ISBN 0-19-501352-2
Web links
- The Free Soil Party (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Donald B. Cole: Martin Van Buren and the American Political System. New edition of the first edition from 1984. Eastern National, Fort Washington 2004, ISBN 1-59091-029-X , pp. 414f.
- ↑ Mayfield, John; Rehearsal for Republicanism: Free Soil and the Politics of Anti-Slavery; Port Washington. NY; Kennikat, 1980