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The 1872 election was an odd one, because there was no presidential candidate from the Democratic Party. Instead, the main opposition to Ulysses Grant was Horace Greeley, who ran with the offshoot Liberal Republican Party. At the time, the Democrats' presence in Congress was being further and further reduced, and they knew they had no one who could win the presidency so they just went "fuck it" and endorsed Greeley, even though Greeley very publicly hated the Democrats and would criticise them all the time back when he was a newspaper editor.

Of course, it turned out that Greeley was a shitty campaigner and his running mate was a laughable drunkard, so he did incredibly poorly and basically sent the Liberal Republicans into their death spiral. And then everything went to shit in Grant's second term and the Democrats made a huge comeback in the 1874 midterms and then won the popular vote in the 1876 presidential election (even though they lost the electoral vote). But it seems to me that 1872 is a possible window for a major political realignment, with the Democratic Party going the way of the Federalists (or at least being reduced to a regional party unseen outside the South) and a new two-party system forming of Radicals vs Liberals.

Maybe if the Liberal Republicans ran a better presidential candidate in 1872, like Charles Francis Adams Sr (son of John Quincy Adams). He doesn't even have to win -- all he has to do is make a good showing of it, and establish the Liberals as a viable alternative for people (particularly in the North) who don't like Grant's administration's corruption and protectionism but would prefer to vote for a political party which doesn't have the Democrats' history of slavery and secession.

Maybe this sets up a three-way 1876 election, or perhaps eventually a formal merger between the Liberals and the Democrats. Or maybe the Liberals come and go like the Know-Nothings did. Anyway, it could be interesting.
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