Presidential election in the United States, 1872

‹  1868  •   •  1876 ›
22nd presidential election
November 5, 1872
			Republican Party
			Ulysses S. Grant / Henry Wilson
			electors					286
			be right				3,598,235
									55.6%
			Liberal Republican Party supported by the Democratic Party
			Horace Greeley / B. Gratz Brown
			electors					0 (3 submitted, 066 elected)
			be right				2,834,761
									43.8%
Election results by state
31   Grant / Wilson						6   Greeley / Brown
President of the United States
Before the election Ulysses S. Grant Republican Party						Elected Ulysses S. Grant Republican Party

In the 1872 presidential election in the United States , incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant , leader of the Radical Republicans , was elected for a second term. This happened despite the fact that there was a rift within the Republican Party and therefore many Liberal Republicans voted for the opposing candidate Horace Greeley , who ran for the Democrats and the Liberal Republican Party .

Greeley died on November 29, 1872, 24 days after the popular election but before the Electoral College cast its votes. As a result, 63 of the 66 electors he signed up for four different other presidential candidates and eight candidates for the office of vice-president voted . Greeley himself received 3 votes, but these were invalidated by Congress .

Henry Wilson , who was elected Vice President by the Republicans, died in office on November 22, 1875.

Nominations

Acting President Ulysses S. Grant was unanimously nominated for a second term by the 753 delegates to the Republican National Convention . However, Vice President Schuyler Colfax narrowly missed a new nomination due to corruption allegations , with 322 delegate votes versus 400 voting for Henry Wilson, a Senator from Massachusetts .

An influential group of breakaway Republicans split off from the party and formed the Liberal Republican Party . At the only national meeting held in Cincinnati , Ohio , the editor of the New York Tribune , Horace Greeley, was nominated as a presidential candidate in the sixth ballot. Benjamin Gratz Brown, governor of Missouri , was nominated as vice president in the second ballot. The party called for an end to the hatred of civil war and " reconstruction, " called for civil service reforms to fight corruption, and for a national income tax .

The Democratic Party also nominated the Greeley / Brown list. Greeley received 686 of the 724 delegate votes while Brown received 713. Adoption of the Liberal Program marked a departure from the Anti-Reconstruction Program of 1868 for the Democrats. They saw a necessary departure from course and a new one in order to win. However, Greeley had the reputation of an aggressive attacker of the Democratic Party, so that the enthusiasm for the nomination was rather low. The meeting, which lasted only nine hours over two days, was the shortest of the major parties in history.

Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to be nominated for the presidency. She ran for the Equal Rights Party . As a “ running mate ” she chose Frederick Douglass , a former slave and later abolitionist . Woodhull's candidacy, however, was ineligible not because she was a woman - the constitution and laws were silent on the matter - but because she did not reach the constitutional age of 35 until September 23, 1873. Woodhull and Douglass are not included in the results below. Woodhull's votes were never counted.

George Francis Train appeared as an independent candidate .

Election campaign

Grant and his radical supporters were widely accused of corruption, and Liberal Republicans called for civil service reforms and an end to "reconstruction," including the withdrawal of federal troops from the south. Both Liberal Republicans and Democrats, however, were disappointed with their candidate Greeley, a poor fighter with little political experience. His career as a newspaper editor gave his opponents a long list of eccentric public statements to attack. With memories of his victories in the Civil War, Grant was invulnerable. In addition, Greeley's running mate , B. Gratz Brown, made several slips due to his drinking problems.

choice

It was the first choice after the founding of the National American Woman Suffrage Association , a women's rights organization that campaigned for women's suffrage . As a result, there were more protests for women's suffrage. In addition to Woodhull's nomination above, several suffragettes attempted to cast their vote in the election. Susan B. Anthony was arrested and fined $ 100 for improperly influencing the election for registering as a voter and casting her vote in the election. Woodhull herself was unable to vote on election day because she was arrested a few days before the election on charges of publishing an indecent newspaper.

Result

candidate	Political party	be right		electors
		number	percent
Ulysses S. Grant	Republican Party	3,598,235	55.6%	286
Horace Greeley	Democratic Party / Liberal Republican Party	2,834,761	43.8%	- (a)
Thomas A. Hendricks	Democratic Party	- (b)	-	42
B. Gratz Brown	Democratic Party / Liberal Republican Party	- (b)	-	18th
Charles J. Jenkins	Democratic Party	- (b)	-	2
David Davis	Liberal Republican Party	- (b)	-	1
Charles O'Conor	Bourbon Democrats	18.602	0.3%	0
James Black	Prohibition Party	5,607	0.1%	0
Others		10,473	0.2%	0
total		6,467,678	100%	349

^(a) Horace Greeley received three votes, but these were canceled because he had already died.
^(b) These candidates received votes owed to Greeley.

literature

• Donald Richard Deskins, Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett: Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2010, ISBN 978-0-472-11697-3 , pp. 198-207 (= Chapter 24: Ulysses S. Grant's Reelection. ).

Web links

Commons : US Presidential Election 1872  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

• Distribution of votes in the individual states
• Distribution of votes by counties

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Uwe Schmitt: Hillary's early sister. In: welt.de . July 25, 2016, accessed October 7, 2018 .