1872: A Very Bad Year

*if you are a presidential candidate in the USA.

Simple POD: President Grant drops dead on December 15, 1872. Horace Greeley is already dead (as of November 29). Those two men were the only people to earn electoral votes that year; IOTL, Greeley's electors scattered, but Grant won handily anyway.

I see a few possible resolutions to this event:

1) The Republican electors vote Grant's running mate Henry Wilson in as vice president, and block any selection of a president before Inauguration Day by not casting a majority to anyone in the EC or the House. Result: Wilson / vacant.

2) The Republicans put Wilson in as veep and pick someone else to fill the presidency. The caveat here is that they would only have a week or so to get enough electors to vote for one person to give em a majority of electoral votes, or at least one of the top three spots for a House selection. Result: ? / Wilson.

3) Wilson is drafted for president directly. This suffers from the same organizational caveat as 2. Result: Wilson / ?.

4) The Republicans mess up, not putting their EVs where they can count. I have no idea how this could turn out.

It's worth noting that IOTL Wilson died as vice-president, so if option 1 happens (admittedly, not that plausible) and he dies on schedule, then the last year of his term would be served by the president pro tempore of the Senate. Kill him off two months earlier, though, and the presidential election cycle is permanently shifted one year sooner.
 
I should say [3] is about the likeliest. For these obscure Electors to choose a President for whom no one had voted would cause a scandal, and 1872 had seen enough of that already. At the same time, the Constitution requires them to choose a VP also.

If I had to guess, I'd pick Senator Henry B Anthony of Rhode Island. As President Pro-Tem of the Senate, he was the same person who would be next in line had no VP been chosen so might seem to have some sort of "claim" to the position. PPTs in those days were often referred to as Acting Vice Presidents when that office lay vacant. That would make him President 1875-77, and maybe 1877-81 instead of Hayes.
 
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In OTL VP Colfax was implicated in scandals but I believe in office until Marcn 1873.

How does that go.

Oh and Would Wilson have been tougher in dealing with the attempts by the Klan and the white estabishemnt to ensre that parts of the US constituation did nto apply in the Soutn (thsoe relating to the rights of former slaves)
 
In OTL VP Colfax was implicated in scandals but I believe in office until Marcn 1873.

Have this turn out worse, go along with the OP's plan, and we could have a situation very similar to that in 1972 in Drew's TL "Fear, Loathing and Gumbo" only a century earlier :D. I think this would be a very interesting idea and I will try to come up with some more input to create electoral chaos (which, considering the state of the US, would probably lead to much violence as well, see the Battle of Liberty Place, the Redshirts, etc.
 
this being the 1870s and the Presidency of Andrew Johnson only 5 years past, so the Veep will not be elected President, the GOP will find some one, also Wilson is an old man in poor health, my guesses on President is W. T. Sherman, or a radical Republican, this is God's gift to the GOP they can pick ANY one at all to be President
 
this being the 1870s and the Presidency of Andrew Johnson only 5 years past, so the Veep will not be elected President, the GOP will find some one, also Wilson is an old man in poor health, my guesses on President is W. T. Sherman, or a radical Republican, this is God's gift to the GOP they can pick ANY one at all to be President


Sorry, but I don't see where Andrew Johnson comes into it.

Unlike AJ, Henry Wilson is a perfectly mainstream Republican, so there's no especial reason for him to be passed over. He wouldn't be great, but he'd be no worse than Hayes, Garfield or any other of the odd bods that the Republicans were to nominate over the next 30 years.
 
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