QUOTE from Mark Twain about the scandals and corruption in the Grant administration: "Everyone, it seemed was in a fever to make money, and the most hungry became known, not always with disdain, as 'robber barons.'"
The CANDIDATES in 1872.
REPUBLICAN: ULYSSES S. GRANT.
The regular Republicans renominated Grant for president and Henry Wilson of Massachusetts for VP.
DEMOCRATS and LIBERAL REPUBLICANS: HORACE GREELEY.
Many Republicans were sick of the corruption in Grant's first term so they split off from the regular Republican Party, met in Cincinnati and nominated Horace Greeley as their candidate for president. The Democrats met a month later and decided to throw in their lot with the Liberal Republicans. Greeley became their candidate also.
The CAMPAIGN in 1872.
Greeley is one of the oddest candidates for president in our history. He was a powerful newspaperman, the editor of the New York Tribune, and a crusading journalist, famously advising young men to "Go West." He was a balding, rotund vegetarian with tiny glasses and big white sideburns. On top of all that he was an atheist.
So you can imagine how the campaign went. New York
Republican boss Thurlow Weed wrote to a friend, "Six weeks ago I did not suppose that any considerable number of men, outside of a Lunatic
Asylum, would nominate Greeley for President." Another reporter said that Greeley's nomination had to be the result of "too much brains and not enough whiskey."
The WINNER was ULYSSES S. GRANT - THE 18TH PRESIDENT.
Grant got 3,598,235 popular votes and 286 electoral.
Greeley got 2,834,761 popular and 66 electoral.
Historian Eugene Roseboom wrote, "Never in American history have two more unfit men been offered for the highest office...The man of no ideas was running against the man of too many.?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment