Horace Greeley's Effects On American Politics

The 1872 election was the United States’ 22nd presidential election. President Ulysses S. Grant was elected to a second term in office, a re-election that was attained in the face of a split within the Republican Party. This split created a third party called the “Liberal Republicans”. This third party nominated Horace Greeley of New York to oppose Grant, which caused the Democratic Party to support Greeley without nominating a candidate of its own. Grant won the re-election by a landslide, but that didn’t stop the Republican Party from splitting so far down the middle that the effects can still be seen today.

President Grant was nominated to run for a second term at the Republican Convention in Philadelphia in June of 1872. The Republican

platform criticized and condemned racial and religious discrimination, and called for giving women equal rights. At the beginning of Grant’s first term as president, it was clear that appointments to his cabinet were motivated by the spoils system rather than merit. The appointment of unqualified friends, along with the attachment of the party leadership to Reconstruction policies-- such as military occupation of the South-- created bitterness among Republicans who weren’t in power. This group called themselves the Liberal Republicans, and they advocated a platform that included a reduction of government intervention in the economy, a return to a gold and silver currency standard, and an end to radical reconstruction.
By 1872, most people were losing interest in Reconstruction, and Congress passed the Amnesty Act (Woolley and Peters, American Presidency Project). This allowed ex-Confederates to vote again. These Southerners were shocked when they saw former slaves voting and holding positions in office. For example, in 1870, Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American senator. However, there was an overwhelming amount of opposition, and he resigned less than a year later.
With the support of Senators Carl Schurz (Missouri) and Charles Sumner (Massachusetts), the Liberal Republicans, who wanted to protest the corruption of the Grant administration, held a convention in Cincinnati, Ohio in May. Horace Greeley proved to be most qualified for the position. Although his ideals were more conservative than those help by most Liberal Republicans, the popularity of his newspaper, the New York Tribune, was responsible for most of his support. Governor Benjamin Brown of Missouri filled the vice presidential slot on the ticket.
When the Democrats met at their own convention two months later, they realized that there was no leader for their own party.

Since they feared that the new third party would take away from their vote, they endorsed Greeley and Brown. They were extremely desperate to unseat Grant, so they threw their support behind a Liberal Republican ticket. (National Democratic Convention, 79)

Horace Greeley had been the editor of the New York Tribune, and was known to be an eccentric figure. He was a reformer, supporting the Whig Party until its death in 1854. Afterwards, he helped found the Republican Party, whose platform was mainly stopping the spread of slavery. Greeley made no secret of his hatred for government corruption, a topic he wrote about constantly in the Tribune. This earned him the support of the Liberal Republicans.

Once nominated, Greeley decided that he would run a campaign for President. However, this wasn’t the norm in 1872. Previously in American history, candidates would act as if they weren’t interested in becoming president, and instead let surrogates make speeches for them. Greeley was different. He went out and made speeches promising to end corruption and land grants to railroads, and supported voting rights for African-Americans. Greeley received support from most of the South. Grant was supported by

the North and his business

interests.
However, he was a terrible and unlucky campaigner. Greeley was awful at public speaking, often contradicting his own words (as shown in the cartoon to the right). His running mate, Governor Brown, was a drunk and often showed up to events completely inebriated. This made Greeley the laughing stock of the country. Greeley may have believed he would be elected, but when his wife fell in October, he had to stop campaigning. After that, it was clear that Grant would win.
Most Americans-- the ones who turned a blind eye to the corruption in Grant’s administration-- still found Grant popular.

On November 5, 1872, Grant destroyed Greeley with 286 electoral votes to 66, winning 31 states, including Greeley’s home state of New York. Grant was re-elected, receiving an overwhelming majority of the votes. Grant’s victory was one of the largest in American electoral history.

Legend has it that Greeley was so humiliated by this defeat that he went insane. (Munger, Biggest Losers) Greeley died (of causes unrelated to his insanity) on November 29, 1872, before the Electoral College could cast its votes. As a result, electors who were committed to Greeley divided their votes between four different presidential candidates. Greeley was still dead at this point, but he still received three electoral votes. These votes were rejected by Congress.

This election saw the first female candidate for president, even though women had not yet achieved suffrage. Victoria Woodhull, a radical social campaigner and one of the first female stockbrokers, had announced her candidacy in 1870. She was officially nominated by the Equal Rights Party in May 1872, with abolitionist Frederick Douglass as her alleged running mate. However, it is not certain that he ever accepted the position. Woodhull was imprisoned the day before Election Day for “publishing an obscene newspaper.” Several suffragettes attempted to vote for her, including Susan B. Anthony, who was arrested. In the

end, Woodhull received approximately zero electoral votes. (Hampson, Pressreader)
The 1872 election is the only United States presidential election in which a nominee died before the Electoral College could cast its votes. This election caused a sizable split in the Republican Party, a split that has both narrowed and widened over time. It was also the first time a woman ran for president, and one could argue that it was the first time a candidate was nominated by another party. This election was an election of many firsts, but these firsts are now footnotes in American history, overshadowed by the corruption of the Grant administration.