Slave Power in the context of "William P. Fessenden"

The Liberty Party was an abolitionist political party in the United States before the American Civil War. The party experienced its greatest activity during the 1840s, while remnants persisted as late as 1860. It supported James G. Birney in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844. Others who attained prominence as leaders of the Liberty Party included Gerrit Smith, Salmon P. Chase, Henry Highland Garnet, Henry Bibb, and William Goodell. They attempted to work within the federal system created by the United States Constitution to diminish the political influence of the Slave Power and advance the cause of universal emancipation and an integrated, egalitarian society.

In the late 1830s, the antislavery movement in the United States was divided between Garrisonian abolitionists, who advocated nonresistance and anti-clericalism and opposed any involvement in electoral politics, and Anti-Garrisonians, who increasingly argued for the necessity of direct political action and the formation of an anti-slavery third party. At a meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society in May 1840, the Anti-Garrisonians broke away from the Old Organization to form the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The New Organization included many political abolitionists who gathered in upstate New York to organize the Liberty Party ahead of the 1840 elections. They rejected the Garrisonian singular emphasis on moral suasion and asserted that abolitionists should oppose slavery by all available means, including by coordinating at the ballot box.