Chapter 50: Salmon Chase’s Free Soil Party signals America’s “third political system.”

Chase is an Abolitionist and a brilliant political strategist intent on running all Democrats out of office. He sees his chance in 1846 when the House passes the Wilmot Proviso along sectional lines.

Within that vote, he sees the potential for a new party which fuses two voting blocs that oppose extending slavery into the former Mexican land for very different reasons. The dominant group comprises anti-Black racists who want the land all to themselves, without price competition from Southern planters. They will be joined by the smaller segment of Abolitionists who oppose slavery on moral grounds.

This party banner touts “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Men, Free Labor and Free Territory,” and ex-President Martin Van Buren agrees to head the ticket in 1848. A decade later it will morph into the Republican Party.