Meeting to Plan Establishment of the Liberty Party

In January 1840, Gerrit Smith hosted fellow abolitionists William Goodell and James G. Birney at his estate in Peterboro to plan the establishment of the Liberty Party, the nation's first political party devoted solely to abolition. The party and its offshoots never elected a candidate, but nonetheless played modest roles in the presidential elections of 1840 and 1844 and helped shift Northern public opinion in the direction of antislavery.