The Free Soil Party was a short-lived coalition political party in the
United States active from 1848 to 1854, when it merged into the Republican
Party. The party was largely focused on the single issue of opposing the
expansion of slavery into the western territories of the United States.
The Free Soil Party formed during the 1848 presidential election, which took
place in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War and debates over the
extension of slavery into the Mexican Cession. After the Whig Party and the
Democratic Party nominated presidential candidates who were unwilling to rule
out the extension of slavery into the Mexican Cession, anti-slavery Democrats
and Whigs joined with members of the abolitionist Liberty Party to form the
new Free Soil Party.