Free Soil Party

The Free Soil Party formed during the presidential election of 1848. It contained members who had left the two major parties, the Whig Party and the Democratic Party , over the issue of slavery . Former president Martin Van Buren (1782–1862; served 1837–41), the party's candidate, came in third place in the popular vote behind the winner, the Whig Party's Zachary Taylor (1784–1850; served 1849–50), and the Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass (1782–1866).

The United States annexed Texas from Mexico in 1845. After winning the Mexican-American War (1846–48), the country acquired the lands that would become California , Nevada , New Mexico , Utah , most of Arizona , and parts of Colorado and Wyoming . The new land raised a question that was controversial in American politics: whether slavery would be allowed in the new American territories.

The Democratic Party was popular in the South, where free white people supported slavery. To avoid controversy over slavery in the election of 1848, the Democratic Party left the slavery expansion question out of its platform. It was well known, however, that Cass supported the right of the free people of new territories to decide on their own whether they wanted slavery.

The Whig Party was most popular in the North. Slavery was largely abolished there, but like the Democratic Party, the Whig Party decided to avoid the slavery expansion controversy. Taylor, in fact, was generally silent on all of the major questions of the day during the campaign.

Silence over the slavery question led dissatisfied members of both parties to form a new party, the Free Soil Party. Its motto was “Free soil, free speech, free labor and free men.” Free soilers opposed the expansion of slavery because they believed that slavery interfered with the rights of free men to find work. In general, members of the Free Soil Party were not particularly concerned with the plight of slaves, and they did not support equal rights for African Americans.

Taylor won the election of 1848. The Free Soil Party declined after the election, but its philosophy led to the creation of the Republican Party in the 1850s.