Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greely, 1872 Although Ulysses S. Grant had been an outstanding general during the Civil War, his leadership abilities abandoned him as president. His eight years in office were marked by an unprecedented series of scandals that were the result of his inability to see the flaws in the people who worked under him. By the time the 1872 election cycle rolled around, the scandals were already coming to light. Dissatisfaction with the Grant administration prompted a group of Republicans to split from their party and form the Liberal Republican Party. Under the leadership of Missouri senator, Carl Schurz, the Liberal Republicans supported civil service reform, merit appointments to government positions, lower taxes and free trade with lower tariffs. They also advocated a change in the direction of Reconstruction by reducing the role of the Federal Government in the occupied the southern states. The Liberal Republicans held their convention Cincinnati, Ohio. The frontrunners for the nomination were Charles Frances Adams, who was son of John Quincy Adams and the grandson of John Adams, and newspaper publisher, Horace Greeley. Adams had a sterling record as a diplomat, was an able attorney and a respected historian, but he had an icy personality. He set so many conditions for his acceptance of the presidential nomination that the party had to give up on him and nominate Horace Greeley. The Democrats were at such a low ebb in 1872 that they had no viable candidate to run for president. They also gave their nomination to Greeley and his running mate, B. Gratz Brown. Horace Greeley was a very odd person. He was usually seen in a long white coat, with unkempt hair and whiskers under his chin. He was subject to wild mood swings that have led me to believe that he might have suffered from manic - depression, which is now called bipolar disorder. During the Civil War Greeley's newspaper, the New York Tribune reflected its editor's moods. At times the paper would urge the Union to take up the fight and "Go on to Richmond!" At other times, when the war was not going well, the Tribune proclaimed "All is lost," and called for a negotiated settlement that would allow the southern states to go their own way. Since the Tribune was a staunch Republican newspaper, these statements caused additional headaches for Abraham Lincoln. Many New York City businessmen were eager to make peace with the South and get back to their lucrative trade with the southern states. Some of them even wanted New York City to secede from the Union so that it could be a neutral entity that could do business with both sides! During the presidential campaign Greeley called for government reform and more freedom for the occupied southern states. Many newspaper editors attacked him for those positions. Greeley's harshest critic was Thomas Nast, the famed cartoonist who invented the modern view of Santa Claus. Greeley took these attacks personally which damaged his fragile mental condition. In the general election, Grant easily won re-election with 56% of the popular vote. The death of Greeley's wife plus his election loss shattered his already fragile mind. Greeley was admitted to a mental institution two weeks after the general election where he died in late November before the ballots were cast in the Electoral College. Most of Greeley's electors voted for Thomas Hendricks who had been a senator from Indiana, and would soon become the state's governor. Later Hendricks would run for vice president with Samuel Tilden in 1876 and service as vice president under Grover Cleveland for a short time before his death in 1885. Historian Eugene H. Roseboom, who wrote a book about American presidential elections in 1957, characterized the 1872 presidential choice in one sentence: "Never in American history have two more unfit men been offered to the country for the highest office." As brutal as that sounds, it is very much the truth. This highly unusual 1872 campaign piece is in leather. Before the Civil War, Grant had clerked in his father's leather good shop. His 1872 running mate, Henry Wilson, had been a cobbler. A poster hails Grant and Henry Wilson as the working man's candidates. An 1872 political tokens hailed Horace Greeley as "The honest old farmer of Chappaqua." Greeley puttered around with his farm in Chappaqua sometimes employing some unusual agricultural methods. Thomas Nast, who is best known for his invention of image of the modern Santa Claus, published some savage cartoons against Greeley. Greeley's call for amnesty for Confederate soldiers prompted Nast to depict Greeley shaking hands with John Wilks Booth. Savage attacks like this undermined Greeley's mental heath. A Thomas Nast Santa Claus.
