Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 1872. Incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican nominee, handily defeated Democratic-endorsed Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley.

Grant was unanimously re-nominated at the 1872 Republican National Convention, but his intra-party opponents organized the Liberal Republican Party and held their own convention. The 1872 Liberal Republican convention nominated Greeley, a New York newspaper publisher, and wrote a platform calling for civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Democratic Party leaders believed that their only hope of defeating Grant was to unite around Greeley, and the 1872 Democratic National Convention nominated the Liberal Republican ticket.

Despite the union between the Liberal Republicans and Democrats, Greeley proved to be an ineffective campaigner and Grant remained widely popular. Grant decisively won re-election, carrying 31 of the 37 states, including several Southern states that would not again vote Republican until the 20th century. Grant was the last incumbent to win a second consecutive term until William McKinley's victory in the 1900 presidential election, and his popular vote margin of 11.8% was the largest margin between 1856 and 1904.

On November 29, 1872, after the popular vote was counted, but before the Electoral College cast its votes, Greeley died. As a result, electors previously committed to Greeley voted for four candidates for president and eight candidates for vice president. The election of 1872 also remains the only instance in U.S. history in which a major presidential candidate who won electoral votes died during the election process. This election set the record for the longest Republican popular vote win streak in American history, four elections, a record that was matched by the same party in 1908. In terms of electoral votes, it was improved with a fifth and sixth consecutive victory in 1876 and 1880. Grant became the only president to serve two full, consecutive terms between Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) and Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921), and was the first and only Republican to serve two full terms until Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961).

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

1872 Republican Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President 18thPresident of the United States(1869–1877) U.S. Senator from Massachusetts(1855–1873)

At the convention the Republicans nominated President Ulysses S. Grant for re-election, but nominated Senator Henry Wilson from Massachusetts for vice president instead of the incumbent Schuyler Colfax, although both were implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal which erupted two months after the Republican convention. Others, who had grown weary of the corruption of the Grant administration, bolted to form the Liberal Republican Party.

The opposition fusion nominations In the hope of defeating Grant, the Democratic Party endorsed the nominees of the Liberal Republican Party.

Liberal Republican Party nomination

An influential group of dissident Republicans split from the party to form the Liberal Republican Party in 1870. At the party's only national convention, held in Cincinnati in 1872, New York Tribune editor and former representative Horace Greeley defeated Charles Francis Adams Sr. on the sixth ballot, winning the nomination for president. Missouri Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown was nominated for vice president on the second ballot.Matthew T. Downey, "Horace Greeley and the Politicians: The Liberal Republican Convention in 1872." Journal of American History 53.4 (1967): 727–750. online

1872 Liberal Republican Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President U.S. Representativefor New York's 6th(1848–1849) 20thGovernor of Missouri(1871–1873)Campaign

Candidates in this section are sorted by their highest vote count on the nominating ballotsCharles Francis Adams Sr.Lyman TrumbullBenjamin Gratz BrownDavid DavisAndrew Gregg CurtinSalmon P. ChaseFmr. Envoy to the United Kingdom from Massachusetts(1861–1868)U.S. Senatorfrom Illinois(1855–1873)20thGovernor of Missouri(1871–1873)Associate Justicefrom Illinois(1862–1877)Fmr. Envoy to Russiafrom Pennsylvania(1869–1872)Chief Justicefrom Ohio(1864–1873)324 votes156 votes95 votes93 votes62 votes32 votes

Democratic Party nomination

1872 Democratic Party ticket for Presidentfor Vice President U.S. Representativefor New York's 6th(1848–1849) 20thGovernor of Missouri(1871–1873)

The Convention met in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 9–10. Because of its strong desire to defeat Ulysses S. Grant, the Democratic Party also nominated the Liberal Republicans' Greeley/Brown ticket and adopted their platform. Greeley received 686 of the 732 delegate votes cast, while Brown received 713. Accepting the Liberal platform meant the Democrats had accepted the New Departure strategy, which rejected the anti-Reconstruction platform of 1868. They realized that to win the election they had to look forward, and not try to re-fight the Civil War. They also realized that they would only split the anti-Grant vote if they nominated a candidate other than Greeley. However, Greeley's long reputation as the most aggressive antagonist of the Democratic Party, its principles, its leadership, and its activists, cooled Democrats' enthusiasm for the presidential nominee.

Some Democrats were worried that backing Greeley would effectively bring the party to extinction, much like how the moribund Whig Party had been doomed by endorsing the Know Nothing candidacy of Millard Fillmore in 1856, though others felt that the Democrats were in a much stronger position on a regional level than the Whigs had been at the time of their demise, and predicted (correctly, as it turned out) that the Liberal Republicans would not be viable in the long-term due to their lack of distinctive positions compared to the main Republican Party. A sizable minority led by James A. Bayard Jr. sought to act independently of the Liberal Republican ticket, but the bulk of the party agreed to endorse Greeley's candidacy. The convention, which lasted only six hours stretched over two days, is the shortest major political party convention in history.

The Liberal Republican Party fused with the Democratic Party in all states except for Louisiana and Texas. In states where Republicans were stronger, the Liberal Republicans fielded a majority of the joint slate of candidates for lower offices; while in states where Democrats were stronger, the Democrats fielded the most candidates. In many states, such as Ohio, each party nominated half of a joint slate of candidates. Even initially reluctant Democratic leaders like Thomas F. Bayard came to support Greeley.

Other nominations

Presidential candidates:

Charles O'Conor David Davis Former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York from New York(Declined nomination) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from Illinois(Nominee – Withdrew on June 24, 1872)

Labor Reform Party The Labor Reform Party had only been organized in 1870 at the National Labor Union Convention, which organized the Labor Reform Party in anticipation of its participation in the 1872 presidential election. In the lead-up to the 1872 presidential election, state-level affiliates of the party formed and saw limited success. One of its major victories was forming a majority coalition with the Democratic Party in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1871 in which William Gove, one of its members, was elected Speaker of the House.

The party's first National Convention meeting was held in Columbus, Ohio, on February 21–22, 1872. Initially, there was a fair amount of discussion as to whether the party should actually nominate anyone for the presidency at that time, or if they should wait at least for the Liberal Republicans to nominate their own ticket first. Every motion to that effect lost, and a number of ballots were taken that resulted in the nomination of David Davis for president, who was the frontrunner for the Liberal Republican presidential nomination at that time. Joel Parker, the Governor of New Jersey, was nominated for vice president.

While Davis did not decline the presidential nomination of the Labor Reform party, he decided to hinge his campaign in large part on the success of attaining the Liberal Republican presidential nomination, so that he might at least have their resources behind him. After their convention, in which he failed to attain their presidential nomination, Davis telegraphed the Labor Reform party and informed them of his intention to withdraw from the presidential contest entirely. Joel Parker soon followed suit.

A second convention was called on August 22 in Philadelphia, where it was decided, rather than making the same mistake again, that the party would cooperate with the new Straight-Out Democratic Party that had recently formed. After the election, the various state affiliates grew less and less active, and by the following year, the party ceased to exist. Labor Reform party activity continued to 1878, when the Greenback and Labor Reform parties, with other organizations, formed a National Party.

Straight-Out Democratic Party Unwilling to support the Democratic party ticket (Greeley/Brown), a group of mostly Southern Democrats held what they called a Straight-Out Democratic Party convention in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 11, 1872. They nominated as presidential candidate Charles O'Conor, who declined their nomination by telegram; for vice president they nominated John Quincy Adams II. Without time to choose a substitute, the party ran the two candidates anyway. They received 0.36% of the popular votes, and no Electoral College votes.

Equal Rights Party Victoria Woodhull is recognized as the first woman to run for president. She was nominated for president by the small Equal Rights Party. Frederick Douglass was nominated for vice president, although he did not attend the convention, acknowledge his nomination, or take an active role in the campaign.

Prohibition Party

The Prohibition Party held its convention in Columbus, Ohio, on February 22, 1872. It nominated James Black of Pennsylvania for president and John Russell of Michigan for vice president.

General election

Campaign Grant's administration and his Radical Republican supporters had been widely accused of corruption, and the Liberal Republicans demanded civil service reform and an end to the Reconstruction process, including withdrawal of federal troops from the South. Both Liberal Republicans and Democrats were disappointed in their candidate Greeley. As wits asked, "Why turn out a knave just to replace him with a fool?"Dunning 197 A poor campaigner with little political experience, Greeley's career as a newspaper editor gave his opponents a long history of eccentric public positions to attack. With memories of his victories in the Civil War to run on, Grant was unassailable. Grant also had a large campaign budget to work with. One historian was quoted saying, "Never before was a candidate placed under such great obligation to men of wealth as was Grant." A large portion of Grant's campaign funds came from entrepreneurs, including Jay Cooke, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Alexander Turney Stewart, Henry Hilton, and John Astor.

Women's suffrage