Talk:Free Soil Party

Suggestion to change the name from United States Free Soil Party to Free Soil Party

Is there any good reason this isn't a Free Soil Party?--Pharos 11:08, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Good question, but are there / have there been Free Soil Parties in other countries? dino 20:39, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I rather doubt it; the U.S. had a historically unusual situation with slavery practiceed in some parts of the country but banned in other areas, and "Free Soil" is not exactly a standard name for a political ideology. Currently, Free Soil Party redirects here anyway. That said, if anyone knows of another "Free Soil Party", I'd be very interested to hear about it.--Pharos 20:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This article has been renamed as the result of a move request. United States Free Soil Party → Free Soil Party
Pretty simple; there was never a 'Free Soil Party' except in the United States.--Pharos 18:27, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Support. Cleaning up redirects after this move should be easy, as many already point to Free Soil Party (or simular). Jonathunder 19:10, 2005 Feb 28 (UTC)
• Moved. violet/riga (t) 23:04, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The free soil movement existed before and after the Free Soil Party. The Free Soil Party grew out of this movement. "Free soil" is also very closely associated with free labor (as opposed to slave labor). The two should not be merged. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Connor.rowe (talk • contribs) 05:19, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

the political term "Free Soil" originated in 1847. Rjensen 08:07, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge Free soil with Free Soil Party

Apparantly there's no thing for this, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be done- honstly, I don't see any information in Free Soil that isn't in this page already. -- TheTrueSora 13:58, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

No one seems to object so I will put a redirect on the Free Soil page. Rjensen 14:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Typo

Question: Should "part" read "party"? "The Compromise of 1850 undercut the part's no-compromise position, and its vote fell off sharply." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.231.18.25 (talk) 19:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

FSP's new candidate

I know this sounds like a joke, but it seems to be serious: notorious radical feminist Cheryl Lyndsey Seelhoff, a.k.a. "Heart", announced her candidacy for President of the United States, running on the Free Soil Party ticket.[1] I suppose this is worth mention in this article. -- Stormwatch 00:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Seelhoff was previously the subject of a biographical article on Wikipedia, which was deleted due to lack of reliable sources documenting notability. The modern "Free Soil Party" appears to consist of a blog only, and to not have any significant real-life presence.--Pharos 16:32, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men

I have changed "'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Man" (in the singular) to "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men" (in the plural). Unless the quote given is a notable exception ("...we inscribe on our banner, 'Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Man,' and under it we will fight on and fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward our exertions"), I do not remember ever hearing (or reading) "free men" other than in the plural. Asteriks (talk) 03:48, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Moved highly questionable intro material

""The Free Soilers were against the expansion of slavery, but did not call for the abolition of slavery in states where it already existed; their goal was to gain the land to the west, and keep the land free of both blacks and slaves. ""

First off, a lot of free soilers were adamantly anti-slavery in all forms, while others figured if they stopped the expansion of slavery that slavery would slowly die out in the old states. Additionally,the actually worked to remove laws, like the Ohio black laws that discimnated against blacks. Frankly, all of this completely contradicts these highly absurd claims made above.66.190.29.150 (talk) 11:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Realistic politicians recognized the basic fact that the U.S. constitution as it then existed did not give the Federal government any powers to directly intervene against slavery inside the slave states, and therefore sought to work against slavery on other fronts... AnonMoos (talk) 11:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

More on Liberty Party connection

I added a mention of the Liberty party to the article, but there should probably be more about its relationship to the founding of the Free Soil party, and influence on it (for example, Salmon P. Chase came to the Free Soil party from the Liberty Party). AnonMoos (talk) 11:01, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Active in 1841

There was a full slate of Free Soil candidates in every election in Washtenaw County, MI starting in 1841, so I think we're missing some early history here. Source: Past and Present of Washtenaw County, Michigan, By Samuel Willard Beakes, p. 661. Kendall-K1 (talk) 15:39, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

This article refers to a political organization which grew out of a particular 1847-1848 "moment", when the Wilmot Proviso turmoil came together with the dissatisfaction of the New York state "Barnburners" to create a new alliance, which partially followed in the path pioneered by the Liberty Party. Any candidates running in Michigan in 1841 could not have belonged to the organization covered by this article (though they may have had a somewhat similar political viewpoint). AnonMoos (talk) 06:20, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Ideology infobox

I removed "manifest destiny" from the ideology field of the article infobox, because bellicose advocates for aggressive expansion of the territory of the United states did not congregate in the Free Soil Party (in fact, the Free Soil Party contained many opponents of the Mexican war). The great majority of Free Soilers certainly agreed that U.S. settlers should fill in the sparsely inhabited good agricultural lands which the U.S. already possessed, but so did the great majority of the U.S. population in general at that time.
Also "free market" in the ideology field might give a misleading impression. The Free Soil Party certainly believed in keeping the wheels of commerce turning, but many members of the party thought that the main point of such commerce was to benefit family farmers and small tradesmen... AnonMoos (talk) 02:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Again ("free trade")

In the context of 19th-century U.S. politics, "Free Trade" meant low tariffs, but the Free-Soilers—while they weren't for high tariffs—supported federal spending on river and harbor improvements, and "such a tariff of duties as will raise revenue adequate to defray the expenses of the federal government" and to pay down the debt. In general, no party that mainly attracted northern support ca. 1850 could be as emphatically low-tariff as southern interests were. Such views on the party's ideology need to be supported in the body of the article (and preferably be discussed on this article talk page first), and not just be added to the ideology field of the infobox... AnonMoos (talk) 07:40, 4 September 2017 (UTC)

Platforms

I stumbled across "The National Conventions and Platforms of All Political Parties 1789-1905" book by Thomas Hudson McKee, which contains the text of the 1848 and 1852 platforms. I may eventually include excerpts in the article... AnonMoos (talk) 18:05, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Opposition party

That's often a vague label for all those opposed to Democrats in 1854-1855 (not a formally-organized party, by the way), among other uses. In some uses, it can refer more to old-line Whigs (who became politically homeless after the Whig party started disintegrating) than it does to Free Soilers. The Opposition Party (Northern U.S.) article has some problems now (see Talk:Opposition Party (Northern U.S.)#Inconsistencies in this article), and I really don't know what would be clarified by changing "Anti-Nebraska movement" to "Opposition party" in this article... AnonMoos (talk) 08:50, 8 September 2017 (UTC)

Kalamazoo, Michigan, and the Formation of the Republican Party of Michigan

What relevance does this source have to the claim that the Free Soil Party was center-right? The essay never describes the Party as right-wing, and even describes pro-slavery Whigs as “conservative”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.176.43.77 (talk) 13:52, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Pro-slavery vs. Anti-Slavery didn't really translate along a conventional left-right divide. The real "conservatives" ca. 1850 (in the sense of people who wanted the least disruption to the existing order), like the silver-gray faction of Whigs, mainly thought that people on all sides in politics should talk a lot less about slavery.

For some reason, people keep adding or trying to add stuff to the "ideology" and/or "political position" fields of the infobox without any real supporting discussion in the text of the article, which doesn't seem useful to me (see #Ideology infobox)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:03, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Ideology in infobox

First off, people who only edit the "ideology" field in the infobox, without contributing to the article in any other way, are annoying. Second, the slavery issue ca. 1850 did not really align along left vs. right in any simple manner (as I tried to explain above). For that matter, it might be difficult to classify the ca. 1850 major parties of Whigs and Democrats along a left-right axis as those terms are commonly understood today. ("Hamiltonian" vs. "Jeffersonian" would be more useful.) In any case, people living in the United States ca. 1850 did not commonly use the words "left" and "right" with political meanings (except when referring to the French Revolution)! AnonMoos (talk) 09:20, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

right vs. left

It seems to be extremely important for some people to categorize this party as "right" or "left", but it's not very important in understanding the Free Soil Party. I'm not reverting right now, but people who only edit the ideology field of the infobox are not doing anything very useful, as I've said before. AnonMoos (talk) 16:56, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I say we just change it so that the political position part is gone as the party does not clearly align with the right or the left. Besides, the Free Soil Party was a big tent party anyway. -Blue Director (talk) 20:25, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Since nobody has replied, I am going to change the political ideology section since the source does not say anything about whether the party was center-left or center-right. -Blue Director (talk) 20:16, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I concur. Curbon7 (talk) 21:12, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion to reframe article

Part wasn't anti-slavery they were anti-expansion of slavery to secure economic opportunities for northerners in the west -- 15:22, 17 November 2023 Milanmish

Most in the party were not abolitionists as such, and they recognized that the U.S. Constitution as it existed at that time did not give the federal government any authority over slavery inside the slave states. However, many of them, like a large number of US Northerners ca. 1850, thought that slavery was morally evil, and their desire to exclude slavery from the territories went together with thinking it was morally evil, yet their practical politics was mostly concerned with benefiting White people. AnonMoos (talk) 13:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)