We have seen the feeble efforts of the old Liberty Party to make head against slavery, Birney and Earle being its candidates in 1840, Birney and Morris in 1844. In 1848 these "conscience Free-soilers" were re-enforced by what have been called the "political Free-soilers" of the State of New York, led by ex-President Van Buren. This astute organizer, aware that his defeat in the democratic convention of 1844 had resulted from southern and pro-slavery influences, led a bolt in the New York Democracy. His partisans in this were known as the "Barn-burners," while the administration Democrats were called the "Hunkers." In the democratic convention of 1848 at Baltimore appeared representatives of both factions, and both sets were admitted, each with half the state vote. This satisfied neither side. The Barn-burners called a convention at Utica in June, and put Van Buren in nomination for the presidency. The Liberty Party men had the preceding year nominated Hale for this office, but now, seeing their opportunity, they called a new convention at Buffalo for August 9, 1848, to which all Free-soilers were invited; and this convention made Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams its candidates for President and Vice-President. The platform declared against any further extension of slavery. The party was henceforth known as the "Free-soilers," the name coming from its insistence that the territory conquered from Mexico should forever remain free. Its platform denounced slavery as a sin against God and a crime against man, and repudiated the compromise of 1850. It also laid special emphasis upon the wickedness of the new fugitive slave law, of which it demanded the repeal. By 1852 the regular Democracy in New York had won back a large proportion of the Barn-burners or free-soil revolters, so that the free-soil prospect in this year was not encouraging. Only 146,149 free-soil votes were polled in all the northern states. [1856] What quickened this drooping movement into new and triumphant life was the revocation of the Missouri Compromise. This rallied to the free-soil standard nearly all the northern Whigs, many old Barn-burners who since 1848 had returned to the democratic fold, and vast numbers of other anti-Lecompton Democrats. Most of the Know-nothings throughout the North also joined it, while of course it had in all its anti-slavery measures the hearty co-operation, directly political or other, of the Abolitionists. The first national convention of this new party, fortunately styling itself "Republican," was in 1856. Whig doctrine early appeared in the party by the demand for protection, internal improvements, and a national banking system; in fact, Republicanism may be said to have received nearly entire the whig mantle, as the Whigs did that of Federalism.