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Anna Elizabeth Dickinson
(born October 28, 1842, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.—died October 22, 1932, Goshen, New York) American lecturer on abolitionism, women's rights, and other reform topics, remembered for the articulate but emotionally blistering rhetoric that characterized her speaking style.
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Liberty Party
U.S. political party (1840–48) created by abolitionists who believed in political action to further antislavery goals. In opposition to William Lloyd Garrison and his followers (who scorned political activity as both futile and sinful in the battle to end slavery), a group of abolitionists met in Warsaw, New York, to organize the Liberty Party.
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Republican Party
in the United States, one of the two major political parties, the other being the Democratic Party. The Republican Party traditionally has supported laissez-faire capitalism, low taxes, and conservative social policies.
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Freedmen's Bureau
Congress created the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands in March 1865 to assist former slaves in post-Civil War America.
(1848–54), minor but influential political party in the pre-Civil War period of American history that opposed the extension of slavery into the western territories. Fearful of expanding slave power within the national government, Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania in 1846 introduced into Congress his famous Wilmot Proviso, calling for the prohibition of slavery in the vast southwestern lands that had been newly acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot concept, which failed in Congress, was a direct ideological antecedent to the Free-Soil Party. Disappointed by the ambivalent position of the Whig Party toward slavery, “Conscience” Whigs held a convention in August 1848 at Buffalo, N.Y. There they were joined by delegates from 17 states drawn from the Liberty Party ( q.v.) and the antislavery faction of the New York Democrats, known as “Barnburners.”. The Free-Soilers' historic slogan calling for “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men” attracted small farmers, debtors, village merchants, and household and mill workers, who resented the prospect of black-labour competition—whether slave or free—in the territories.
In 1848 the Free-Soil Party nominated the former U.S. president Martin Van Buren to head its ticket. Though the party polled only 10 percent of the popular vote in the presidential election that year, it weakened the regular Democratic candidate in New York and contributed to the election of the Whig candidate General Zachary Taylor as president. The Free-Soil vote was reduced to 5 percent in 1852, when John P. Hale was the presidential nominee. Nevertheless, a dozen Free-Soil congressmen later held the balance of power in the House of Representatives, thus wielding considerable influence. In addition, the party was well represented in several state legislatures. In 1854 the disorganized remnants of the party were absorbed into the newly formed Republican Party, which carried the Free-Soil idea of opposing the expansion of slavery one step further by condemning slavery as a moral evil as well.
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This Day in History
Feb 9
Lead Story
Satchel Paige nominated to Baseball Hall of Fame, 1971
On this day in 1971, pitcher Leroy "Satchel" Paige becomes the first Negro League veteran to be nominated for the Baseball Hall of Fame. In August of that…
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