Kent Williams, age 14, of Brownsville, Texas, for his question:

WHAT WAS THE LIBERTY PARTY?

The Liberty Party was the first anti slavery political party in the United States. It was formed in 1839 by a group of individuals who broke away from the militant American Anti Slavery Society. The party was organized at Warsaw, N.Y.

Five months after the party was organized, the abolitionist leader James Birney was nominated as a candidate for the United States Presidency. In the election of 1840 he received 7,069 votes. In 1844 when Birney was again the candidate of the Liberty Party, he received more than 62,OOO"votes for the Presidency.

Birney's relatively small vote, however, drew enough support away from Henry Clay, the anti slavery Whig candidate, to ensure the election of James K. Polk, the pro slavery Democratic candidate. The split among anti slavery forces also enabled the pro slavery forces to incorporate Texas in the Union as a slave state.

The party nominated abolitionist John Hale for the Presidency in 1848 but he withdrew his candidacy when the party merged with the anti slavery Democrats and Whigs to form the Free Soil Party.