WI: Democrats field their own candidate in 1872?

Lets say, instead of nominating the Liberal Republicans, the Democrats nominate their own candidate. Lets say Thomas Hendricks/Charles Jenkins. How would the election play off from there? Would Hendricks still be VP in 1884? How will it effect future elections? Butterflies?
 

Japhy

Banned
The Liberal Republicans were the bridge by which the Democratic party saved itself from extinction. If the Straight Out faction wins and is able to form a ticket that mattered, which most likely would have been led by Jeremiah S. Black, that is creating a gap which the Liberals will not be willing to cross over. So Grant faces Black and Greeley or Davis as the LR pick and you've probably transformed the system. Especially if it's Davis that is the LR pick. The Remnant Democrats *might* try again in 1876 but they'll have gone the way of the Whigs. The question then becomes what the relation between the Redeemers and the Liberals will be. They agree on the fundamentals of white rule in the South but personalities and expectations of both sides can cause plenty of knock on changes.
 
Lets say, instead of nominating the Liberal Republicans, the Democrats nominate their own candidate. Lets say Thomas Hendricks/Charles Jenkins. How would the election play off from there? Would Hendricks still be VP in 1884? How will it effect future elections? Butterflies?


Probably not a lot. The LRs take some votes away from Grant, but too few to carry any states. Without Greeley on their ticket, the Dems probably get much the same popular vote that Seymour got four years earlier, but the Republican vote holds reasonably firm for Grant, so he still wins comfortably.
 
The Democrats had no choice. As Henry Watterson of the Lousiville Courier-Journal put it, "All roads that lead from Greeley go to Grant." https://archive.org/stream/henrywattersonre007688mbp/henrywattersonre007688mbp_djvu.txt In particular, the South was insistent that the Democrats accept Greeley. For them, (white) "home rule" was *the* issue, and they were willing to accept any candidate who could bring that about. (Besides, they remembered that Greeley had posted bail for Jefferson Davis.)
 
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