FREE-SOILERS, the name of a political party in the United States, which began to be prominent about 1846, rose to much importance durinn. the Kansas-Nebraska strug gle, and became merged into the republican party in 1856. The " Wilmot proviso," offered in 1846 by David Wilmot, a democratic member from Pennsylvania, to a bill in congress making an appropriation to negotiate peace with Mexico, was the stand poiPit, of their party. This famous proviso reads: " that there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude m any territory on the continent of America which shall be hereafter acquired by or annexed to the United States by virtue of this appropriation, or in any manner whatsoever, except for crime." The proviso passed the house, but failed in the senate. In both the Whig and democratic national conventions in 1846, this proviso or its substance was introduced into the party platforms: in both it was rejected, and many prominent northern men, of both parties, seceded. In New York,
these seceders were chiefly from the democratic party, and were known as " barn burners" (q.v.). The free-soilers held a national convention at Buffalo in 1848, and nom inated ex-president Van Buren as president. The ticket was presented in 13 states, obtaining an aggregate of 291,363 votes out of 2,871,908; but it carried no electoral vote. In 1852, P. hale was the candidate of the free-soilers for president, but his vote was only 156,149 out of 3,144,201. In New York alone, nearly 100,000 "barn-burners" had disappeardd, by far the greater portion returning to the regular democratic party. In the next vote for president (1856), a considerable number of free-soilers went with the native Americans, but the greater portion sided with the newly-formed republican party, and from that time the free-soilers have not formed a distinctive party.