Talk:1872 United States presidential election

Victoria Woodhull
Why is there no mention of Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President? Although she did not receive a significant portion of the popular vote and received no electoral votes, the trivia factor is worth adding, here, I feel. Ari 19:13, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * We apparently didn't know about her - please add a mention, thanks! Stan 03:10, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The section about her currently says "On the day before the election, Woodhull was arrested for "publishing an obscene newspaper" and so was unable to cast a vote for herself." This doesn't make any sense; Woodhull would have been unable to cast a vote for herself anyway, because as a woman, she couldn't vote. 62.78.230.2 (talk) 15:36, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

I am sure at one point in the recent past, the Women's suffrage section was labeled The Equal Rights Party section and there were pictures of Victoria Woodhull and Frederick Douglass included. Was it changed at any point? Regardless of her age, she is a major figure in American history and I believe she, her party, and her face deserve to be represented as the first woman nominated for President.

EC in Missouri
Wikipedia's research has not yet been sufficient to determine the pairings of 4 electoral votes in Missouri; therefore, the possible tickets are listed with the minimum and maximum possible number of electoral votes each.

It is my theory that the following was the ticket breakdown of Missouri.

Hendricks/Brown - 6 Brown/Julian - 5 Brown/Palmer - 3 Davis/Groesbeck - 1

I don't have backup for this evidence-wise, here's a few things worth mentioning


 * 1) 1 - Missouri electors could not vote for Brown for President and Brown for Vice President.

Therefore, the votes for B. Gratz Brown for Vice President were cast with Thomas Hendricks receiving the Presidential vote or David Davis.

The votes for B. Gratz Brown for President were cast with either Charles W. Julian, John M. Palmer or William Groesbeck receiving the Vice Presidential vote.

Since the person who recieved the vote for Vice President with Hendricks in four other states was Brown, I feel it is reasonable to put a Hendricks/Brown vote in Missouri as the most reasonable.

I feel it's also important to note the text of Article Two in regards to electors, just for reference and since it is misintrepreted by some.

"The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not lie an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves."

This forbids Brown/Brown votes in Missouri. This would not forbid Davis/Palmer votes.

Now to the final nine votes.

I feel a pairing of Brown with Palmer and Julian is the most likely as all three were prominent Liberal Republicans. Brown was the Governor of Missouri, Palmer was the Governor of Illinois, Julian had just served 10 years as a Congressman from Indiana. Davis was a Supreme Court justice and Groesbeck was a less prominent person than either Julian or Palmer.

If anybody can provide some more insight into this, i'm sure we can get it resolved soon.

--RobbieFal 21:45, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Electoral picture peculiarity
Why is the graphic depiction of electoral votes skewed? Rarely nowadays does one see democratic votes colored red and and republican votes blue. --maru (talk) Contribs 20:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)


 * This post has been copied to Wikipedia talk:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy. Please direct your responses there.


 * — DLJessup (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

Other candidates?
This information would be worth adding if it can be verified, I don't know more about it than what I found at the link: "The following Presidential tickets may be regarded as already in the field: "Anti-secret societies: For President, Charles Francis Adams of Mass.; for Vice President, Charles F. Howard of IL "Temperance [evidently another name for the Prohibition Party]: For President, James Black of Penn.; for Vice President, John Russell of Mich. "Labor Reform: For President, David Davis of Ill.; for Vice President, Joel Parker of N.J. "Liberal Republicans: For President, Horace Greeley of N.Y.; for Vice President B. Gratz Brown, of Mo. "Workingmen: For President, Ulysses S. Grant of Ill.,; for Vice President, Henry Wilson of Mass. "There remain three nominating conventions to be held, viz.: The National Republican at Philadelphia, June 5. Reunion and Reform, Baltimore, July 8. Democratic Reform: Baltimore, July 9." http://www.victoria-woodhull.com/wc061500.htm Schizombie 06:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

-- Comments:

-- Adams and Howard declined to run on the Anti-Secret ticket. The party did not field a ticket this year but did run candidates in the following elections. Ohio Elects the President, p. 47.

-- Davis and Parker declined to run on the National Labor Reform ticket. The party endorsed Charles O'Conor, who also refused to run. Since he was also the candidate of the Straight-Out Democrats, the Labor Reform leaders continued to support him. OETP, p. 47.

-- The Workingmen Party was more of a poll of delegates than a normal convention. The vote at the convention was Grant 204 to Greeley 5. I would recommend that this party not be included in the information. OETP p. 47.

-- The Reunion and Reform Party held its national convention in Cincinnati on 5/1-2/1872. The delegates did not make any nominations but instead worked with the Liberal Republican National Convention, which was held concurrently in the same city. It is possible that anti-Greeley delegates called a second convention. Zanesville Daily Courier 5/1-2/1872.

-- Other conventions:

-- Independent Liberal Republican Party, Fifth Avenue Hotel, NYC, 6/21/1872 nominated William S. Groesbeck OH for President and Frederick L. Olmstead NY for VP. OETP p. 47.

-- Liberal Colored Republican Party, Weissinger Hall, Louisville KY, 9/25/1872 nominated Horace Greeley NY for President and B. Gratz Brown MO for VP. OETP p. 47. Chronicler3 02:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Susan B. Anthony?
The current "On this day..." on the front page has Susan B. Anthony being arrested for attempting to vote in this election ... in mid-June! Did elections take place in June then? --Jfruh (talk) 02:50, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe that the standard Election Day had been set by this point. You will note, however, that Selected anniversaries/June 18 reads that this was the date in 1873 on which Anthony was fined, not the date on which she was arrested or had attempted to cast a vote.


 * — DLJessup (talk) 03:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, good point! I hadn't noticed that. --Jfruh (talk) 17:22, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia's research?"
I think this could be worded better. (Regarding WP:OR and all, by which wikipedians aren't allowed to do research). For instance, state why the ambiguity exists, and what the conflicting sources say? Borisblue 05:02, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Borisblue, wikipedians are expected to do research. What they are not expected to do is original research.  In other words, we are to perform research in finding previously published theories, data, statements, concepts, arguments, and ideas that we report, but we are not to construct those theories ourselves.


 * That being said, if you can find a better way to word the footnote, by all means improve it. (And if you do so, please apply it as well to United States presidential election, 1796 and United States presidential election, 1824.)  The problem in this case is not that there are conflicting sources, but that we are depending on incomplete data.  No wikipedian has found a source that is more finely grained than the state-by-state tallies for the candidates.  (For instance, visit the table in the National Archives.)  For most elections, this is sufficient to figure out the breakdown of electoral votes by ticket, but occasionally, we are left hanging.


 * — DLJessup (talk) 13:46, 18 June 2006 (UTC)


 * As an aside, assigning statewide totals to the national candidates is not an exact science. States electing the Presidential Electors by the General Ticket recorded a separate vote per Elector. Usually, voters voted for the entire slate, but this was not necessary.

Here is an example from the 1920 election in California. Source: "Statement of Vote: General Election ... in the State of California," Compiled by Frank C. Jordan, Secretary of State, 1921.

Winning ticket (Republican) - Electors in the order they appeared on the ballot and vote

John H. Rosseter 624,992 W.I. Hollingsworth 624,291 A. H. Hewitt 624,067 A.J. Mathews 624,041 George M. Francis 623,964 There were 8 other Republican Electors, receiving from 623,920 to 623,172 votes.

Rosseter, who was the first named, also placed first. Therefore, his vote of 624,992 is usually used as Harding's total in California in 1920.

In cases where each Elector received a different number of votes, there are several ways to count those votes.

1. Use the total for the first named Elector. This person usually won the most votes (as above), but not always. 2. Use the total of the candidate on each ticket who won the most votes. 3. Use the total for the second-highest placing Elector in each county. This is rarely used, but I think that it has merit especially in nineteenth century elections in which the local Elector invariably ran ahead of the remainder of the ticket. Dropping the first place finisher in each county removes the "favorite son" effect to emphasize the strength of the ticket as a whole.

I don't know if this is helpful for anyone or not. Chronicler3 17:56, 13 November 2006 (UTC)


 * The term "Wikipedia's research" is not acceptable in an article. See Manual of Style/Self-references to avoid. I have changed the formulation to "The used sources had insufficient data to determine the pairings of 4 electoral votes in Missouri". PrimeHunter (talk) 00:16, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Electoral map wrong
Louisiana and Arkansas should not be counted for any candidate. Also California's electoral count should be 6 not 5. I don't know how to change the map.

Electoral Votes
So if Horace Greeley died before the electoral college vote (therefore presumably being ineligible for voting), how many votes would he have gotten had he not died? I.E., how many states did he carry? PolarisSLBM 03:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Bourbon Democratic Party Vice-President
The Straight-Out Democratic Party nominee for Vice-President in 1872 was John Quincy Adams II not Charles Francis Adams according to the New York Times October 3, 1872 page 5. The Lewiston Evening Journal of September 5, 1872 also identifies John Quincy Adams as the nominee, not Charles Adams. The Chicago Tribune of September 5, 1872 also states that the nominee was John Quincy Adams and not Charles Adams. The Atlanta Constitution of September 11, 1872 page 2 also confirms that the straight-Out Democratic Party Vice-Presidential nominee was John Quincy Adams and not Charles Francis Adams.65.94.60.47 01:47, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Electoral Votes not counted
In tallying the electoral votes for the 1872 Presidential election, Congress refused to count the votes of seventeen electors in three states, as follows: ARKANSAS – Grant won the state according to the official returns. However the Democrats charged that their had been massive vote fraud. According to the New York Times of December 6, 1872 the Democratic elector candidiates met and cast six votes for Gratz Brown for President and six votes for Nathaniel Banks for Vice-President. These votes were submitted to Congress. However Congress refused to count either set of electoral votes from Arkansas. GEORGIA – Three votes for Greeley were not counted because he was dead. LOUISIANA – Governor Warmoth, a Liberal Republican and Greeley supporter, replaced members of the State Returning Board with his own appointees. The Warmoth board counted the votes and announced the result as: Greeley 66,467, Grant 59,975. They certified eight Greeley electors. The Greeley electors cast eight abstaining votes for President and eight votes for Gratz Brown for Vice-President. The dismissed members of the returning board counted the votes themselves and came up with a different result: Grant 71,663, Greeley 57,029. They certified eight Grant electors. Congress refused to count any electoral votes from Louisiana.65.94.58.107 02:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Andrew Mason
I'm interested in voter turnout. How many registered voters were there in 1872? Is that information available? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.65.208.144 (talk) 18:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Grant's home state
The article is self-contradictory, in places saying Grant was from Illinois and in other places saying he was from Ohio. I know one's home state can sometimes be ambiguous, but could the article settle on one or the other? 24.64.165.129 (talk) 16:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Popular vote: Error on Page
Table on right shows: Grant          Greeley Popular vote  3,598,235       3,834,111 Percentage    55.6%           43.8%

...self-contradictory figures.Dduff442 (talk) 03:28, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Infobox
Concerning the infobox, we need a 'note' of somekind to show that Greeley's 66 electoral votes were scattered. GoodDay (talk) 06:38, 8 November 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree. Greeley only got 3 electoral votes (per the map), but the box says 66.  This is both confusing and inaccurate.  Either the vote number needs to be changed, or the picture/names need to be changed.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.96.24.156 (talk) 14:05, 25 November 2012 (UTC)

Dubious source
The claim under the Campaign section that a drunken Benjamin Gratz Brown attempted to butter a watermelon during a campaign rally is sourced to a site called everything2.com. As near as I can tell, this looks like some sort of self-publication site that doesn't follow any academic writing standards regarding things such as sources, so I don't think this qualifies as a reliable source. The article on Brown himself days nothing about his alcoholism. Without more reliable sources, I think this bit should be removed. 62.78.230.2 (talk) 15:16, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. The dubiously sourced content has been removed. Thanks for the observation.--JayJasper (talk) 19:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Votes needed to win in the "Table of results"
The claim is that 177 votes were needed to win. This apparently was based on the votes for Arkansas and Louisiana being discarded, thus reducing the majority.

During the joint session of Congress for the counting of electoral votes, after the counting of votes, the vice-president declared that the majority was 184. See, Congressional Globe, vol. 46 (February 12, 1873), p. 1306. 98.180.88.86 (talk) 18:41, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Results chart percentages and margins are catastrophically wrong
The election results subtract each candidates percentages from the sum of only the two top candidates. Added together, the result vote percentages are greater than 100%.

I really don't know how to fix this, but I really hope someone can. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:404:CF80:1C40:7CD4:F2DB:A284:6F76 (talk) 19:05, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Map error
Arkansas and Louisiana are shown on the map. They were invalidated. 2402:8100:3968:D9F:4866:4DAD:CD2F:4493 (talk) 14:12, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Liberal Republican color
How come Greeley is given the Democratic color in the various states when a set of colors for a Liberal Republican candidate exist? I am aware he was nominated by the Democrats as well, but the map color should depend on the primary party the candidate was nominated under. Talthiel (talk) 19:05, 9 April 2024 (UTC)