An Age of Compromise and Crises, 1820-60
 Free Soil Party (Mass.) Free Soil roll: manuscript, 1853-54. | In 1848, the Whig Party split among "Conscience Whigs," who demanded federal action to end slavery, and "Cotton Whigs," who advocated compromise with slavery to maintain the Union. The Conscience Whigs – Charles Sumner among them – established a separate Free Soil Party that drew antislavery members from the Whig and Democratic parties, as well as from the abolitionist Liberty Party. Free Soilers ran in the 1848 and 1852 federal elections on the platform of "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men." This roll lists Free Soil Party voters in Boston. MS Am 521 – Gift of Samuel Abbott Green, 1899. |