page_title: Free Soil Party
section_title: Election of 1848
hierarchical_section_title: Free Soil Party / History / Formation of the Free Soil Party / Election of 1848
caption_attribution_description: An 1848 caricature cartoon on the U.S. presidential race, supporting the Free Soil Party candidacy of Martin van Buren. The Free Soil Party was a strong third party that year, which firmly rejected any expansion of slavery into territories conquered in the Mexican War. The major-party candidates -- Democrat Lewis Cass of Michigan and Whig Gen. Zachary Taylor -- stand at left, confessing their shortcomings, while Van Buren (holding the U.S. Constitution) stands at right with the "Goddess of Liberty". In the middle are a number of other prominent political figures of the day, depicted negatively (except for Van Buren's son). The Library of Congress notes copied below explain the cartoon from right to left, but it was more probably intended to be read from left to right. Title: Can you rest one hand on the sacred altar of Liberty, and with the other extend the domain of the darkest curse ... Other Title: Federal pap! Cass - Taylor - Cresswell - Propaganda: Corning - Dickenson - Foster - John Van Buren - Martin Van Buren - Goddess of Liberty Creator(s): N. Currier (Firm), Date Created/Published: [New York]&#160;: Pub. by Peter Smith [i.e., Nathaniel Currier], 2 Spruce St., N.Y., c1848. Medium: 1 print on wove paper&#160;: lithograph&#160;; image 29.8 x 42.9 cm. Summary: A strongly pro-Van Buren cartoon, espousing the antislavery platform of the Free Soil party and condemning Whigs and conservative Democrats alike. The artist also reflects the lingering bitterness among many Democrats over the death in 1848 of former Democratic governor of New York Silas Wright. Wright's death was widely considered the result of pressures exerted on him by the federal patronage apparatus under President James K. Polk. On the right stand (right to left) Liberty, Martin Van Buren, and his son John Van Buren. Liberty, here a gowned female holding a staff and Phrygian cap, says to the elder Van Buren: "Freedom's battle once begun, / Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, / Though baffled oft is ever won." Van Buren holds the Constitution and rests one hand on a pedestal marked with his own name and those of Washington, Jefferson, and Jackson. His son John points to the coffin of Silas Wright at his feet, saying, "The blow that was aimed at a living statesman fell upon his new grave, the creature who sought to be an assassin was, by an inscrutable dispensation, converted into a jackall." The coffin is inscribed "Justice is the emblem of our Government, and her light is truth." Nearby, the jackal "Propaganda" paws at a grave. In the center stands Albany editor Edwin Croswell near a large sow with a Negro's head, labeled "Federal Pap." Several piglets surround her hoping to feed, including Erastus D. Corning and New York senators Daniel S. Dickinson and Henry Allen Foster. Croswell: "More money! Canal Bank's broke! Damn it Corning, the people have found us out. They're all Barnburners--Matty's their next President, and we're used up! Oh dear!!" Corning: "Oh no. Croswell, here's the cash. Abuse Van Buren; call him a traitor." Dickinson: "O carry me back to old Virginny." Sow: "Talk about glory. Gull the doughfaces. If they resist the extension of Slavery, threaten the Union. We don't care, we must have a market for our property." On the left stand presidential candidates Lewis Cass and Zachary Taylor. Cass laments, "Confound them nigger drivers--Prince John [i.e., Van Buren] was right, They've got my soul and sent my body home by the lakes; now even Croswell can't save me." Taylor muses, "Van Buren is the greatest Statesman of the age; but I'll keep still and may be elected yet." Below the picture is an extract from an antislavery speech by Daniel Washburn at the Utica convention in June 1848: "Can you rest one hand on the sacred altar of Liberty, and with the other extend the domain of the darkest curse that a righteous heaven permits on earth? Every impulse of humanity revolts at the idea. The trials and struggles of our patriot fathers, the blood and agony of their battlefields, a thousand witnesses of the blight and desolation of Bondage on a virgin soil, and thronging Millions from distant shores seeking a Free Land for their Free labor, utter an awful and undying protest!" Reproduction Number: LC-USZ62-10487 (b&amp;w film copy neg.) LC-DIG-pga-04821 (digital file from original item) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. Call Number: PGA - Currier &amp; Ives--Federal pap... (B size) [P&amp;P] Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Notes: Title from item. "Entered ... 1848 by P. Smith ..." The Library's impression of the print was received for copyright deposit on August 12, 1848. Currier &amp; Ives&#160;: a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit, MI&#160;: Gale Research, c1983, no. 2105 (Under title: Federal pap...) Weitenkampf, p. 92 Published in: American political prints, 1766-1876 / Bernard F. Reilly. Boston&#160;: G.K. Hall, 1991, entry 1848-50. Subjects: Barnburner Democrats. Corning, Erastus D. Cass, Lewis, as presidential candidate. Constitution (pictured). Dickinson, Daniel S. Croswell, Edwin. Foster, Henry Allen. Free Soil party. Liberty (personified). New York, State of, state government and politics. Slaves and slavery, as a campaign issue. Spoils system and patronage. Taylor, Zachary, as presidential candidate. Treasury of the United States. Van Buren, John. Van Buren, Martin, later career. Washburn, Daniel. Wright, Silas. Format: Lithographs--1840-1850. Political cartoons--1840-1850. Collections: Cartoon Prints, American Popular Graphic Arts
context_page_description: The Free Soil Party was a short-lived coalition political party in the United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.
  The Free Soil Party formed during the 1848 presidential election, which took place in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War and debates over the extension of slavery into the Mexican Cession. After the Whig Party and the Democratic Party nominated presidential candidates who were unwilling to rule out the extension of slavery into the Mexican Cession, anti-slavery Democrats and Whigs joined with members of the abolitionist Liberty Party to form the new Free Soil Party. Running as the Free Soil presidential candidate, former President Martin Van Buren won 10.1 percent of the popular vote, the strongest popular vote performance by a third party up to that point in U.S. history.
  Though Van Buren and many other Free Soil supporters rejoined the Democrats or the Whigs immediately after the 1848 election, Free Soilers retained a presence in Congress over the next six years.
context_section_description: Led by John Van Buren, the Barnburners bolted from the 1848 Democratic National Convention after the party nominated a ticket consisting of Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan and former Congressman William O. Butler of Kentucky; Cass and Butler had both opposed the Wilmot Proviso. Shortly after the Democrats nominated Cass, a group of Whigs made plans for a convention of anti-slavery politicians and activists in the event that the 1848 Whig National Convention nominated General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana for president. With the strong backing of slave state delegates, Taylor defeated Henry Clay to win the Whig presidential nomination. For vice president, the Whigs nominated Millard Fillmore of New York, a conservative Northerner. The nomination of Taylor, a slaveholder without any history in the Whig Party, spurred anti-slavery Whigs to go through with their convention, which would meet in Buffalo, New York in August. A faction of the Liberty Party led by Salmon P. Chase agreed to attend the convention, though another faction of the party, led by Gerrit Smith, refused to consider merging with another party.
  Meanwhile, Barnburners convened in Utica, New York on June 22; they were joined by a smaller number of Whigs and Democrats from outside New York. Though initially reluctant to accept to run for president, former President Van Buren accepted the group's presidential nomination. Van Buren endorsed the position that slavery should be excluded from the territories acquired from Mexico, further declaring his belief that slavery was inconsistent with the "principles of the Revolution". Because Van Buren had favored the gag rule and had generally accommodated pro-slavery leaders during his presidency, many Liberty Party leaders and anti-slavery Whigs were unconvinced as to the sincerity of Van Buren's anti-slavery beliefs. Historian A. James Reichley writes that, while resentment stemming from his defeat at the 1844 Democratic National Convention may have played a role in his candidacy, Van Buren ran on the grounds that "the long-term welfare of [the Democratic Party], and the nation, required that the [Democratic Party] shed its Calhounite influence, even at the cost of losing an election or two."
  With mix of Democratic, Whig, and Liberty Party attendees, the National Free Soil Convention convened in Buffalo early August. Anti-slavery leaders made up a majority of the attendees, but the convention also attracted some Democrats and Whigs who were indifferent on the issue of slavery but disliked the nominee of their respective party. Salmon Chase, Preston King, and Benjamin Franklin Butler led the drafting of a platform that not only endorsed the Wilmot Proviso but also called for the abolition of slavery in Washington, D.C. and all U.S. territories. With the backing of most Democratic delegates, about half of the Whig delegates, and a small number of Liberty Party leaders, Van Buren defeated John P. Hale to win the fledgling party's presidential nomination. For vice president, the Free Soil Party nominated Charles Francis Adams Sr., the youngest son of the recently-deceased John Quincy Adams. 
  Some Free Soil leaders were initially optimistic that Van Buren could carry a handful of Northern states and force a contingent election in the House of Representatives, but Van Buren did not win a single electoral vote. However, the nomination of Van Buren alienated many Whigs; except in northern Ohio, most Whig leaders and newspapers rallied around Taylor's candidacy. Ultimately, Taylor won the election with a majority of the electoral vote and a plurality of the popular vote, improving on Clay's 1844 performance in the South and benefiting from the defection of many Democrats to Van Buren in the North. Van Buren won ten percent of the national popular vote and fifteen percent of the popular vote in the Northern states; he received a popular vote total five times greater than that of Birney's 1844 candidacy. Van Buren was the first third party candidate in U.S. history to win at least ten percent of the national popular vote. In concurr
caption: 1848 cartoon for Van Buren
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