Liberty Party

THE LIBERTY PARTY was a short-lived political party in the United States around the 1840s that had as its main focus the abolition of slavery. It could considered the forerunner of the Free Soil and Republican parties.

The Liberty Party formed as a splinter group of the American Anti-Slavery Society. This occurred when several members of that organization grew disaffected with the society's leader, William Lloyd Garrison. These members held that the abolishment of slavery could be achieved through conventional political means, while Garrison championed more radical action, believing politics, and the Constitution itself were broken. Among these were several prominent philanthropists, including Arthur Tappan, Theodore Dwight Weld, Gerrit Smith, and William Jay; writers John Greenleaf Whittier and William Goodell; and Salmon Portland Chase, who became a well-known senator and governor of Ohio and, later, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1839, these and other disaffected members created the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. In 1840, this group held a national convention in Albany, New York and formed their own political party, the Liberty Party, with the abolition of slavery as the sole plank in its party platform.

Attorney James G. Birney, an outspoken abolitionist publisher and former slaveholder, ran unsuccessfully as the Liberty Party candidate for president in 1840. He earned only about 7,000 of the roughly two million votes cast for president. Improvements in local organization, combined with popular concerns over the annexation of Texas, caused the party to grow. In the 1844 election, Birney garnered about 62,000 votes out of the roughly 2.5 million votes cast for president. Birney might have polled better, but for a forged letter that appeared in many Whig newspapers that made him appear soft on slavery. In the 1844 election, Birney played spoiler. Whig candidate Henry Clay lost the election by about 38,000 votes. Had Birney not run, it is likely that his 62,000 [Page 373]supporters would have voted for Clay instead of Democrat James K. Polk, and would have swept Clay into the White House.

While the Liberty Party twice lost the presidency, support for the party at the grassroots level grew. Even so, John P. Hale ran on the Liberty Party ticket in 1848, but ended up withdrawing his candidacy when Liberty Party leaders urged the party faithful to vote for candidates of the newly created Free Soil Party, instead. This party had been formed in April of 1848 when many members of the Liberty Party, led mostly by Salmon Chase, met in Buffalo, New York and elected to join struggling Whigs and Barnburner democrats with anti-slavery views. A small group of Liberty Party members led by Gerrit Smith seceded from Chase's following and formed a group called the Liberty League in an effort to keep Liberty Party ideology alive. However, Free Soil and, later, Republican Party popularity brought about its quick demise. Still, the Liberty Party should be remembered for the groundbreaking role it played in focusing national political attention upon the issue of slavery.