Liberal Republican Party (United States)

Liberal Republican Party
Liberal Republican campaign poster
Historical leaders	Carl Schurz Lyman Trumbull Horace Greeley Charles Sumner
Founded	1870; 154 years ago (1870)
Dissolved	1872; 152 years ago (1872)
Split from	Republican Party Moderate faction
Merged into	Republican Party Moderate faction Democratic Party
Succeeded by	• Half-Breed faction of the Republican Party • Mugwump faction of the Republican Party • Democratic Party
Ideology	Anti-Grantism Anti-Reconstructionism Classical liberalism Economic liberalism
National affiliation	Democratic Party (1872)
Politics of the United States Political parties Elections

This article is part of a series on
Liberalism in the United States
Schools Classical Conservative Economic Laissez-faire Modern Progressive Social Third Way
Principles Civil rights Due process Economic freedom Economic progressivism Egalitarianism Equal opportunity Environmentalism Fiscal conservatism Freedom of the press Freedom of religion Freedom of speech Free market Harm Principle Individualism Internationalism Legal egalitarianism Mixed economy Republicanism Rule of law Separation of church and state Social Democracy Social equality Social justice Social welfare Unalienable rights Welfare state
History American Revolutionary War Civil rights movement Fair Deal Gilded Age Great Society Jacksonian democracy Jeffersonian democracy Liberal Republicans New Deal New Deal coalition Progressive Era Third Way Young America movement
Intellectuals Abbott Addams Carson Commager Dewey Douglass Dworkin Emerson Frank Franklin Friedan Friedman Galbraith Garrison Hofstadter Ireland Jefferson King (Coretta) King Jr. Maddow McCarthy McGovern Mott Murray Nozick Nussbaum Paine Pinker Rawls Rorty Rush Schlesinger Sharpton Skinner Smith Sontag Stanton Steinem Stewart Sumner Trilling Trotter Thoreau Truth Vidal Ward Warren Wells Wellstone
Politicians Abzug Abrams Aguilar Anthony Baker Biden Bryan Buttigieg Carter Chavez Chisholm Clark Clay Clinton (Bill) Clinton (Hillary) Clyburn Cuomo (Andrew) Cuomo (Mario) Dean Dukakis Farmer Feinstein Frank Glasser Gompers Gore Hamer Harris Hays Hoyer Huerta Humphrey Jackson (Andrew) Jackson (Jesse) Javits Jefferson Jeffries Johnson Jordan Kaine Kefauver Kennedy (John) Kennedy (Joseph) Kennedy (Robert) Kennedy (Ted) Kerry King (Coretta) King Jr. La Follette La Guardia Lewis Lincoln Lindsay Madison Markey McCarthy McGovern Milk Mondale Murphy Murray Nelson Newsom O'Neill Obama Pelosi Powell Randolph Reid Reuther Rockefeller Roosevelt (Eleanor) Roosevelt (Franklin) Roosevelt (Theodore) Rush Schumer Sharpton Shriver Smith Stevenson Truman Wallace Warren Wellstone Yarborough
Jurists Blackmun Brandeis Brennan Breyer Cardozo Darrow Douglas Dworkin Ginsburg Harlan Houston K. B. Jackson Kagan Marshall Sotomayor Souter Stevens Warren
Parties Anti-Federalist Party Democratic Party Democratic-Republican Party National Democratic Party People's Party Progressive Party (1912) Progressive Party (1924) Progressive Party (1948) Rhode Island Suffrage Party Rockefeller Republicans (until the 1970s)
Think tanks Center for American Progress Center for Budget and Policy Priorities Roosevelt Institute
Other organizations AFL–CIO American Civil Liberties Union American Constitution Society American Humanist Association Americans United for Separation of Church and State Brennan Center For Justice Equal Justice Works NAACP National Organization for Women People for the American Way NARAL Southern Christian Leadership Conference Southern Center for Human Rights SNCC National Urban League
Media The American Prospect The Atlantic CNN HuffPost Mother Jones MSNBC The Nation The New Republic The New York Times The Problem with Jon Stewart Rolling Stone Sojourners Talking Points Memo ThinkProgress Salon The Washington Post
See also Liberal bias in academia Liberal bias in the media Liberal theorists Modern liberalism in the United States
Liberalism portal  United States portal
v t e

The Liberal Republican Party was an American political party that was organized in May 1872 to oppose the reelection of President Ulysses S. Grant and his Radical Republican supporters in the presidential election of 1872. The party emerged in Missouri under the leadership of Senator Carl Schurz and soon attracted other opponents of Grant; Liberal Republicans decried the scandals of the Grant administration and sought civil service reform. The party opposed Grant's Reconstruction policies, particularly the Enforcement Acts that destroyed the Ku Klux Klan. It lost in a landslide, and disappeared from the national stage after the 1872 election.

The Republican Party had emerged as the dominant party in the aftermath of the Civil War, but many original Republicans became dissatisfied with the leadership of President Grant. Prominent liberal leaders like Schurz, Charles Sumner and Lyman Trumbull had been leaders in the fight against slavery and for the first stages of Reconstruction. They considered the task accomplished, and thought continued radical policies to be oppressive. By 1872, they demanded an end to Reconstruction and a restoration of self-government to the South.

The 1872 Liberal Republican convention nominated a ticket consisting of Horace Greeley, longtime publisher of the New-York Tribune, and Missouri Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown. Seeking to defeat Grant, the Democratic Party nominated the Liberal Republican ticket and endorsed the Liberal Republican platform. However, Grant emerged triumphant in the election, capitalizing on superior party organization. Democrats lacked enthusiasm for Greeley, who for decades had denounced them. Greeley received 44% of the popular vote, winning the states of Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and Maryland. Grant received 286 of the 352 electoral college votes. Greeley died shortly after the election.

The Liberal Republican Party vanished immediately after the election, though a handful of its leaders continued to serve in Congress. Former party members scattered into the Democratic and Republican parties. By cutting the allegiance of liberal elements to the Republican Party, the Liberal Republicans made it possible for many of these leaders to move to the Democratic Party.^{[citation needed]}