http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1872
Again voting for the President who committed himself to protecting the civil rights of all Americans.
Tough call. The Liberal Republicans have some attractive points, like their anti-corruption stance. But, they think the goals of Reconstruction, and full equality for blacks, already have been achieved; I fear it may take a while longer. Not much longer, I’m sure, maybe another five to ten years.
I might consider voting for Mr. Greely… but have you gotten a look at him lately? He ain’t lookin so good. Makes you wonder if he’d even last till the inauguration.
Reconstruction is going to end way too soon anyway, with extremely negative consequences for civil rights and race relations. Better vote for Grant, the hero who saved the United States, who’s at least committed to seeing it through for one more term.
This has got to be the worst choice that was offered to voters in American history. Even from the perspective of 142 years I still haven’t found anyone who’s even remotely passable. I want to pick Greeley but his cave-in on Reconstruction has rendered him off-limits.
I’d have been tempted to vote for the Woodhull/Douglass ticket, even though a woman and a black man would have had no chance of gaining a significant number of votes in 1872. However, just having them as candidates make this a historically significant election.
Yes. ^This. Wish they had been included on the poll.
Ditto. This is a terrible choice for the American voter. Grant, although an honest man, seems powerless to curb the corruption high in his administration, and the Democrats are still far too much under the influence of racist Southerners with blood on their hands from the Civil War and former slaves.
With the advantage of hindsight, yes. But as Grant stood for reelection in 1872, knowing what was known at the time, there was little for which to criticize him. The economy was doing well, the corruption in the Grant administration had yet to be revealed, and most of all, Grant’s Attorney General (Amos Akerman) had made real progress in cracking down on violence in the South and establishing biracial Reconstruction on a promising footing.
In fact, Grant and Akerman’s crackdown on the KKK (and other white terrorist groups) had been so successful that Democrats changed their electoral strategy in 1872. Gone were the racist rhetoric and advocacy of violence from 1868; instead, Democrats accepted and endorsed black suffrage and nominated a dissident Republican and lifelong opponent of slavery, Horace Greeley, for President. They advertised their moderation as a New Departure from their racist pro-slavery past.
The nomination of Greeley caused many black voters, and white supporters of racial equality, to take a new look at the Democratic Party. Charles Sumner, the radical egalitarian from Massachusetts, supported Greeley.
The problem, of course, is that Greeley was completely unqualified to be President. He was a newspaper editor, not a politician. He was a man of mercurial opinions and transient enthusiasms, unfit for high office.
And as we now know, he was in poor health and died a month after the election. Had he won, his running mate B. Gratz Brown (he went by his middle name) would probably have been President. (No guarantees, because Greeley died before the electors voted.) Brown had been a sincere antislavery Unionist in Missouri. And by the way, he was an early supporter of women’s suffrage. Maybe he would have been better than Grant; who knows.
At any rate, everything went to hell in a handbasket after this election. The economy tanked, Grant allowed his staff to pillage the Treasury, Akerman was gone, and Southern white terrorists returned in force and violently “redeemed” the Southern states from biracial rule.
But again, based on what was known in 1872, I would have voted for Grant.
You make a persuasive case; thank you.