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In 1844, the Liberty Party had been a somewhat small and marginalized group, appealing mainly to abolitionists. In 1848, with the political sentiment stirred up by the
Wilmot Proviso controversies, and the "Barnburner" wing of the New York Democratic party splitting off from the rest of the Democratic party, there was the possibility of forming a much larger and more influential political grouping devoted to anti-slavery goals -- but not all of whom considered themselves to be primarily abolitionists as such, or were willing to work under the Liberty Party name. Therefore most Liberty Party supporters joined their efforts with the
Free Soil Party in 1848.
The Liberty Party is very notable as a party which gained few votes and had little influence under its own name (in 1844), but which prepared the way for (and merged with) the Free Soil Party (which was a very strong third party in 1848), while the Free Soil Party in turn prepared the way for (and merged with) the Republican Party in 1854. In 1856, the Republican Party gained "big two" party status, and won the election of 1860, leading to the realization of many of the original Liberty Party goals...
AnonMoos (
talk)
14:14, 26 December 2009 (UTC)reply
Looks like Others: third party politics from the nation's founding to the rise and fall by Darcy G. Richardson has good info on the party, which split three ways.
Шизомби (Sz) (
talk)
05:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)reply
If there was a third Liberty splinter in 1848 beyond Gerrit Smith's "National Liberty Party", then it must have been quite negligeable in terms of the presidential election; certainly it isn't mentioned in the "National Party Conventions 1831-1972" book (from which I took a number of the little facts and figures which I added to the article).
AnonMoos (
talk)
16:33, 7 January 2010 (UTC)reply
1852?
There's mention here
[1] of Smith getting 72(!) votes in 1852. Looks like this maybe recorded in Svend Petersen's A Statistical History of the American Presidential Elections, which deserves a look.
Шизомби (Sz) (
talk)
22:05, 18 January 2010 (UTC)reply
72 votes is barely above statistical noise level; in a country like the United States in 1852, it is not a meaningful political movement.
AnonMoos (
talk)
23:13, 18 January 2010 (UTC)reply
Indeed, if that were the only time the party ran, it would not likely deserve an article. That they had more significant history perhaps justifies at least mentioning this one, if the source pans out. I wonder if they were only on the ballot in one state; an unimpressive showing even if that were so.
Шизомби (Sz) (
talk)
23:39, 18 January 2010 (UTC)reply
In the Allan Nevins book Prologue to Civil War: 1859-1861, there's a mention that Gerrit Smith also ran in 1860, with backing of a few abolitionists and a campaign fund totalling $50 (five–zero dollars), and apparently also completely negligeable results in terms of presidential votes. I'm sure Gerrit Smith had a number of positive personal qualities, and was completely devoted to the rapid utter destruction of slavery, but he seems to have transformed himself into the Harold Stassen of the ante-bellum decade by not grasping that one of the points of engaging in politics was to usefully cooperate with people who don't always agree with you about everything, if doing so helps you to achieve some of your desired goals. If he wanted only to maintain his doctrinal purity and preach to the choir, it's not too clear why he entered politics in the first place. In any case, the post-1848 runs would appear to be more relevant to the
Gerrit Smith article, than to the Liberty Party article...
AnonMoos (
talk)
20:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)reply
P.S. In the back of another book I happened to be reading (Hail to the Candidate: Presidential Campaigns from Banners to Broadcasts,
ISBN1-56098-178-4) there's a list of candidates in elections before 1988, and Gerrit Smith is listed under "National Liberty / Liberty League" in 1848, "national Liberty" in 1852, and "Land Reform" in 1856 (no 1860 run is listed). There was also a "Southern Rights" candidacy in 1852 by
George M. Troop...
AnonMoos (
talk)
10:57, 7 February 2010 (UTC)reply
Abraham Lincoln wrote an interesting letter to one Williamson Durley on October 3, 1845, saying that if the Liberty party voters in New York state had voted Whig in 1844, Clay would have been elected instead of Polk, and probably Texas would not have then been admitted to the U.S. as a slave state, and that in general, Liberty party supporters could best work towards most of their more immediately achievable goals in alliance with the Whig party. Of course, at that time Lincoln was a local central Illinois politician (his only elected position having been as a member of the Illinois legislature), and was not known nationally...
AnonMoos (
talk)
02:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)reply
Both yesterday and today, I tried to add the mentions of
Gerrit Smith's runs on what remained of the Liberty Party in both the
1856 and
1860 elections. However, my edits have screwed up the election results section on the article. I don't even know how that happened! I followed the directions of the template and it should've turned out fine. Can I please have some help with fixing my mistake? --
75.68.122.13 (
talk)
12:30, 27 August 2016 (UTC)Jacob Chesley the Alternate Historianreply
Well, it looks like I'm replying to an old comment I made almost two years ago back when I was a wiki contributor. It looks like the Gerrit Smith runs of 1856 and 1860 along with
William Goodell's run in
1852 all got added to the template on the article eventually anyway. --
JCC the Alternate Historian (
talk)
14:41, 31 July 2018 (UTC)reply
Platform
I stumbled across "The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties 1789-1905" book by Thomas Hudson McKee. It contains the text of the 1843 platform. Apparently there was no platform in 1839-1840, other than a brief statement from a New York state meeting asserting that abolitionists entering politics as part of an abolitionist party was a good thing. It doesn't give any platform for the 1847 John P. Hale convention or the 1848 Gerritt Smith convention...
AnonMoos (
talk)
17:52, 23 June 2017 (UTC)reply
Requested move 9 January 2021
The following is a closed discussion of a
requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a
move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Support. The other 1932 party barely has any notability whatsoever and might be better off merged as a two-sentence stub elsewhere. Partial disambiguation is generally okay when one topic is 100x times as relevant as the other.
SnowFire (
talk)
00:09, 11 January 2021 (UTC)reply
Oppose I don't agree with the other Opposers above as they seem to be arguing against
the INCDAB vs PRIMARYTOPIC RFC instead of trying to apply that community consensus here. Other
WP:INCDAB RMs have set the requirements very high for these to succeed, but the numbers aren't quite high enough here. Also strongly oppose the suggestion that this is the overall primary topic as the
Liberty Korea Party has been called the 'Liberty Party' in RS.
Iffy★
Chat --
18:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.