Ep. 72: Corey Brooks on the Liberty Party and Antislavery Third Parties

In this episode, I talk with Corey Brooks, a professor of history at York College of Pennsylvania and chairperson of the Department of History and Political Science. Corey is the author of Liberty Power: Antislavery Third Parties and the Transformation of American Politics. We discuss the antecedents of the abolitionist third-party movement and what led to the conclusion that abolition couldn’t be realized through the Whig and Democratic duopoly. Political abolitionists used a variety of tactics to amplify their voice and bring their agitation to the national stage. They succeeded in electing several abolitionist Senators, including Charles Sumner, and were instrumental in creating the Republican Party. I particularly wanted to ask Corey about the relevance of this history to the development of a Democratic Constitution Party. David Waldstreicher’s interview on the place of slavery in the original Constitution is mentioned.