| United States Presidential Election, 1872 |
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In the U.S. presidential election of 1872, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant was easily elected to a second term in office despite a split within the Republican Party that resulted in a defection of many key Republicans to opponent Horace Greeley . On November 29 , 1872 , after the popular vote but before the Electoral College cast its votes, Greeley died. As a result, electors previously committed to Greeley voted for four different candidates for President, and eight different candidates for Vice President . Despite the absence of life, Greeley himself still received three electoral votes, but these votes were disallowed by Congress . Henry Wilson , who was chosen by the Republicans to succeed Schuyler Colfax as Vice President, died on November 22 , 1875 . NOMINATIONS Republican Party nomination President Grant was unanimously renominated for a second term by the convention's 752 delegates. Vice President Colfax however narrowly missed renomination, garnering 322 delegates but falling short of Henry Wilson's 400. Liberal Republican Party nomination An influential group of dissident Republicans split from the party to form the Liberal Republican Party , which nominated '' New York Tribune '' editor (and Democratic nominee) Horace Greeley for President and Missouri Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown for Vice President. Democratic Party nomination As the Liberal Republicans did, the Democratic Party chose the Greeley/Brown ticket. Greeley received 686 of the 724 delegate votes cast, while Brown received 713. Other nominations Victoria Woodhull became the first woman to be nominated for the Presidency, running on the platform of the Equal Rights Party. She was not legally able to vote, and was in jail on charges of indecency on Election Day in any case. (Fellow suffragette Susan B. Anthony would be arrested and fined for attempting to vote on Election Day.) She would also not have been eligible to the Presidency on Inauguration Day, being only 34 years old, although theoretically her running mate Frederick Douglass could have served as Acting President until she qualified on September 23 , 1873 . She is not listed in "Election results" below, as she received a negligible percentage of the popular vote and no electoral votes. GENERAL ELECTION Campaign Grant's administration had been widely accused of corruption and Nepotism , and the Liberal Republicans demanded civil service reform and an end to the Reconstruction process including withdrawal of federal troops from the South . However, while eager to defeat Grant, both Liberal Republicans and Democrats were disappointed in their candidate Greeley. 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 the Civil War to run on, Grant was unassailable. Disputes During the joint session of Congress for the counting of the electoral vote on February 12 , 1873 , numerous objections were raised to some of the results. However, unlike the objections which would be made in 1877 , these had no impact on the outcome of the election.1
Results
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