excellant point!

excellant point!

Cute, Nathan, but I don't think the historical analogy holds. What ultimately happened is that a third-party challenge DID occur -- the Republicans -- that quickly supplanted the Whigs, who were moribund. I don't think that the Whigs' survival as a political party would have been a great blow against slavery. Though in 1844 the country was in a different place from where it would be 16 years later, so maybe your characterization of the Liberty Party as tactically inept holds.

Of course, I still agree with the political point you're trying to make for right now. It would be a major mistake to compare the situation in the US right now with the situation in the US then. The situation in the US then was essentially pre-revolutionary, with both of the major parties ready to split and one to disintegrate in the face of the most pressing issue of the time -- the only issue, really -- and audacious people like Garrison, Douglass, and John Brown capable of speaking fiery radical words and carrying out audacious actions that may have seemed crazy in any other context, but that ultimately brought on the war and the end of slavery. We're not in such a situation today, and anyone who thinks we are is delusional.

The Republicans were not a "third party" challenge. They were de facto the Whig replacement, since large chunks of the Whigs seceded to join with anti-slavery Democrats and others.

The fallacy of the Greens and Nader is the idea that third parties can grow from a non-existent base and slowly grow to challenge two major parties. Any real "third party" emergence will inevitably be more of a split in a major party.

If the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club and the NAACP walked out of the Democratic Convention to form a separate party, that would be more equivalent of the emergence of the Republicans in the 1850s.

The Green/Liberty Party style marginal efforts are just useless and often counterproductive tactical delusions.

I like the idea of the AFL-CIO, the Sierra Club, & the NAACP walking out of the Democratic Convention and forming a third party. In the unlikely event that they do, I promise to be the very next person to join their party.

Yoshi, the Free Soil Party also contained disgruntled Democrats, most notably the "Barnburner" faction of New York Democrats, and thus New York Barnburner Democrat Martin Van Buren was their candidate in 1852. It should also be noted that while Van Buren's spoiler role gave New York to Taylor, it would also appear that disgust among northern Whigs with their nomination of a slaveowning Louisianan and their protest vote for Van Buren in Ohio and Indiana gave those states to Cass, making the whole thing something of a wash.

I'd also note, to Mr. Lacny, that the Republican Party was never a third party, really. It emerged out of the utter collapse of the Whig Party. Essentially, over the course of 1854 the Whig Party almost entirely collapsed (except in New York, where Seward managed to hold it intact long enough to lead it wholesale into the Republican party the next year). Various alternative anti-Democratic movements emerged immediately to take its place - freesoil anti-slavery parties in the Midwest and upper New England, nativist organizations in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and the south. These coalesced into the Republican and Know Nothing Parties, and then almost immediately most of the northern Know Nothings defected over to the Republicans (along with Seward's New York Whigs). Leaving the Know Nothings as essentially the southern Whigs when they nominated Millard Fillmore for President in 1856. Of course, it's more complicated than that. Many Democrats defected, too, either to the Republicans (like Hannibal Hamlin of Maine) or, occasionally, to the Know Nothings (like Sam Houston). But to call the Republicans a third party is to ignore the fact that the Whigs pretty much completely fell apart as a national party prior to the emergence of the Republicans. But my impression is that just about nowhere were there three way races between Whigs, Republicans, and Democrats. Anywhere where there were still Whigs, there weren't any Republicans (most notably New York, probably some parts of the South). The situation with the Know Nothings is more complicated, but I think even there there wasn't much competition - in the north, states generally had either Know Nothings or Republicans, but not both, until the northern Know Nothing movement collapsed and its membership and leadership largely joined the Republicans.

Well, all I have to say is that, like 'em or
not, Ross Perot and Ralph Nader were both RIGHT;
there IS a "giant sucking sound," and it is
coming from our brand new "corporate oligarchy."
The abolitionists were right, too, as well as
the progressives in the early 20th century...
Leading me to query; isn't it better when a
small third party gets absorbed into a larger
one? My understanding was that the progressives
were a fringe party whose protests caused one
of the parties (which one?) to relent...

I am a bit confused. I thought the Green Party was the "third Party".