Benjamin Gratz Brown, May 28, 1826 (Frankfort, Ky.) – December 13, 1885 (Kirkwood, Mo.)
VP candidate for Liberal Republican Party and Democratic Party (1872)
Running mate with nominee: Horace Greeley (1811-1872)
Popular vote: 2,834,761 (43.8%)
Electoral vote: 66/352 (pledged but scattered upon Greeley's death shortly after the election)
The campaign:
Finding the Republican Party too moderate, Brown was an early member of the Liberal Republican Party and made a strong bid for the presidential nomination in 1872, but eventually threw his delegates behind Horace Greeley and thus took the VP slot. The Democrats took a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" stance and gave a pallid endorsement to the Greeley/Brown ticket.
The LRP, to use an oxymoron, was one of the most major minor parties in US presidential election history. But with such a disparate and conflicting political base the Party had problems with any message outside that of being anti-Grant. Greeley was not a professional politician and was an ineffective campaigner and Brown was alleged to have been drunk at several public events.
The LRP carried the states of Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas. They came very close to winning Virginia but it would not have mattered, 1872 was a Grant landslide.
Greeley died shortly after the election, Brown came full circle in his political career and rejoined the Democratic Party although he never ran for office again, and the Liberal Republican Party vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
Election history:
1852-1858 - Missouri House of Representatives (Democratic/1854-1858 Republican)
1857 - Governor of Missouri (Republican) - defeated
1863-1867 - US Senate (Mo.) (Unconditional Union Party)
1871-1873 - Governor of Missouri (Liberal Republican Party)
1872 - Nominee, US President (Liberal Republican) - defeated
Other occupations: attorney, newspaper editor, colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War
Buried: Oak Hill Cemetery (Kirkwood, Mo.)
Notes:
His grandfathers Jesse Brown and Jesse Bledsoe both served as US Senators from Kentucky.
His cousin Francis Preston Blair Jr. served as a US Senator from Missouri and was the Democratic
Party VP nominee in 1868.
Walked with a limp as a result of being shot in the leg in a duel in 1856.
Received 18 electoral votes for President after Greeley's death.
Was active in preventing Missouri from joining the Confederacy.
