Free Soil US Representatives

See below for annotated biographies of US Congressional Representatives who were affiliated with the Free Soil Party. Source: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography.

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ALLEN, Charles,  August 9, 1797 – August 6, 1869.  Free-Soil U.S. Congressman from Massachusetts  He was twice elected to Congress as a Free-Soil Party candidate (March 4, 1849 – March 3, 1853), but did not seek renomination in 1852. In 1849 he edited the Boston Whig, later called the Republican. 

BOOTH, Walter, 1791-1870, Woodbridge, Conn., soldier,  jurist, U.S. Congressman from Connecticut, Free Soil Party.  

DE WHITT, Alexander,  1798-1879, Massachusetts, Free-Soil U.S. Congressman, elected in 1853. Opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In 1854 he was reelected to congress representing the anti-slavery American Party. Later joined the Republican Party. Strong supporter of the Union during the Civil War.

DURKEE, Charles, c. 1805-1870, Royalton, Vermont, merchant, territorial legislature in Wisconsin, U.S. Congressman, Senator, Territorial Governor of Utah.  Two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Free Soil Party, serving March 1849 to March 1853. 

GIDDINGS, Joshua Reed, 1795-1865, Ohio, lawyer, statesman, U.S. Congressman.  First abolitionist elected to House of Representatives.  Opposed Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and was against further expansion of slavery into the new territories acquired during the Mexican War of 1846. 

HOWE, John W., 1801-1873, lawyer, U.S. congressman from Pennsylvania (1849-1853). Member of the Free-Soil Party in the Thirty-first Congress, reelected to the Thirty-second Congress as a Whig Party representative.  

JULIAN, George W., 1817-1899, Indiana, Society of Friends, Quaker, statesman, lawyer, radical abolitionist leader from Indiana.  Free Soil Party nominee for Vice President of the U.S. (lost), 1852. 

KING, Preston, 1806-1865, New York, U.S. Congressman, U.S. Senator, politician.  Opponent of the extension of slavery into the new territories.  Supporter of the Wilmot Proviso in Congress.  Co-founder of Free Soil Party.  

MANN, Horace, 1796-1859, Boston, Mass., educator, political leader, social reformer, anti-slavery activist.  U.S. Congressman, Whig Party, from Massachusetts.  Opposed extension of slavery in territories annexed in the Mexican War.  

ROOT, Joseph M., 1807-1879, Ohio, lawyer, U.S. Congressman, Mayor of Sandusky, Ohio. Whig Congressman and later Free Soil Member of the U.S. House of Representatives.   

SMITH, Gerrit, 1797-1874, Peterboro, New York, anti-slavery member of U.S. congress, large landowner, reformer, philanthropist, radical abolitionist leader.  Secretly supported militant abolitionist John Brown.   

TUCK, Amos, 1810-1879, New Hampshire, lawyer, politician, abolitionist.  Co-founder of the Republican Party.  Free-Soil and Whig anti-slavery member of the U.S. Congress.  Opposed the annexation of Texas and the extension of slavery to the new territories.



Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.