“ LIBERTY PARTY, the first political party organized in the United States to oppose the spread and restrict the political power of slavery, and the lineal precursor of the Free Soil and Republican parties. It originated in the Old North-west. Its organization was preceded there by a long anti-slavery religious movement. James G. Birney (q.v.) , to whom more than to any other man belongs the honour of founding and leading the party, began to define the political duties of so-called “abolitionists” about 1836 ”

“ Indeed, no party of one idea could hope to satisfy men who had been Whigs or Democrats. At the same time, anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats were segregating in state politics, and the issue of excluding slavery from the new territory acquired from Mexico afforded a golden opportunity to unite all anti-slavery men on the principle of the Wilmot Proviso (1846) . ”

“ As the campaign progressed, the Whigs alternately abused the Liberty men and made frantic appeals for their support. But the Liberty men were strongly opposed to Clay personally; and even if his equivocal campaign letters (see Clay, Henry) had not left exceedingly small ground for belief that he would resist the annexation of Texas, still the Liberty men were not such as to admit that an end justifies the means ”