Talk:Liberty Party (United States, 1840)

1848 split

Don't know if it was a split or another party going by the same name or what exactly. There's discussion of it in http://library.syr.edu/digital/collections/g/GerritSmith/453.htm 15:04, 20 November 2008 (UTC) User:Шизомби

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

P.S. In the back of another book I happened to be reading (Hail to the Candidate: Presidential Campaigns from Banners to Broadcasts, ISBN 1-56098-178-4) 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)

According to http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/dr-smiths-back-room/ , Gerrit Smith ran on the "Radical Abolition Party" ticket in 1856... AnonMoos (talk) 18:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Lincoln letter

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)

There's something about the Liberty Party "spoiler" role in the election of 1844 in the Henry Clay article... AnonMoos (talk) 11:32, 8 October 2011 (UTC)

Messup on the Article

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 Historian

I think those belong on the Gerrit Smith article rather than this article, as mentioned in my previous comments above... AnonMoos (talk) 15:42, 28 August 2016 (UTC)

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)

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)

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.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:36, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

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Liberty Party (United States, 1840) → Liberty Party (United States) – Being active for only a single year, the 1932 part was practically a blip compared to the much more historically important 1840 party. For example, look at the page views in the last 30 days, 247 for the 1932 Party and 3,648 for the anti-slavery party.
There are just no comparing the two. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 19:31, 9 January 2021 (UTC) —Relisting. Jack Frost (talk) 08:14, 18 January 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, malformed move contrary to WP:DISAMBIGUATION. see Liberty Party (United States, 1932). In ictu oculi (talk) 00:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)
• 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)

@SnowFire: this party is getting 121 out of 151 so might be Primary Topic, but it is not WP:PRIMARYUNITEDSTATESTOPIC as no such guideline exists. Partial disambiguation is not generally okay - even at 12x, such rule busting cases only apply where where editor deities such as Michael Jackson are involved. In ictu oculi (talk) 16:24, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

• Move to Liberty Party as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC as demonstrated by nom and above comments. A secondary reason to move is that the party was active beyond 1840, making the current title somewhat imprecise. Move dab page to Liberty Party (disambiguation). - Station1 (talk) 07:38, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
• Leaning oppose, as long as Liberty Party (United States, 1932) exists as an article. If, as suggested, Liberty Party (United States, 1932) can be merged elsewhere, and is no longer a standalone article, then I would likely support this RM proposal. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 17:23, 21 January 2021 (UTC)
• 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)

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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.