Gerrit Smith 1844

What if Gerrit Smith had been the Liberty Party's presidential nominee in the 1844 election instead of James Birney?
 
What if Gerrit Smith had been the Liberty Party's presidential nominee in the 1844 election instead of James Birney?

I don't think it makes too much difference who the Liberty party nominates for president in 1844, As long as they nominate *anyone* they will on balance be hurting Clay in New York.

OTOH, it has been argued that "those 15,814 Liberty party votes were simply no longer Clay's to lose; most had defected before the 1844 canvas" and while most of them had once been Whigs, they "had gone to great lengths to renounce their former political ties...Liberty party converts were not lkely to backslide to embrace what they considered a proslavery political party, headed by the nation's most prominent, if somewhat moderate, slaveholder." https://books.google.com/books?id=i9zGGYTqJnsC&pg=PT63
 
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