John Russell

John Russell, September 20, 1822 (Livingston, NY) - November 4, 1912 (Detroit, Mich.)

VP candidate for Prohibition Party (1872)

Running mate with nominee: James Black (1823-1893)
Popular vote: 5,607 (0.1%)                     
Electoral vote: 0/352

The campaign:

Between the creation of the Prohibition Party in 1869 and the 1872 presidential election they had already had some experience running candidates for local offices in nine states. After the Liberty Party in 1860, the Prohibitionists were among the early national political party conventions with female delegates.

Although they looked like a single-issue anti-alcohol party, they did include some other issues in their 1872 platform, such as:

10. That we favor the election of President, Vice-President and United States Senators by direct vote of the people.

13. That an adequate public revenue being necessary, it may properly be raised by impost duties and by an equitable assessment upon the property and legitimate business of the country; nevertheless we are opposed to any discrimination of capital against labor, as well as to all monopoly and class legislation.

16. That the right of suffrage rests on no mere circumstance of color, race, former social condition, sex or nationality, but inheres in the nature of man; and when from any cause it has been withheld from citizens of our country who are of suitable age and mentally and morally qualified for the discharge of its duties, it should be speedily restored by the people in their sovereign capacity.

17. That a liberal and just policy should be pursued to promote foreign immigration to our shores, always allowing to the naturalized citizens equal rights, privileges and protection under the Constitution with those who are native born.

The Black/Russell ticket of the new party was on the ballot in six states and even placed third in a four-way race in Ohio: Michigan 1271 (0.58%), Ohio 2,100 (0.40%), New Hampshire 200 (0.29%), Pennsyvania 1630 (0.29%), Connecticut 186 (0.19%), New York 201 (0.02%)

The Prohibition Party would grow and endure to the present day, becoming America's oldest third party.

Election history:
1870 - US House of Representatives (Mich.) (Temperance Party) - defeated
1876 - US House of Representatives (Mich.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1882 - US House of Representatives (Mich.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1884 - US House of Representatives (Mich.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1890 - US House of Representatives (Mich.) (Prohibition Party) - defeated
1892 - Governor of Michigan (Prohibition Party) - defeated

Other occupations: Methodist minister, newspaper publisher, 1st National Committee Chairman of the Prohibition Party, Prohibition Party Presidential Elector (Mich.) 1896, 1912.

Buried: Hart Cemetery (New Baltimore, Mich.)

Notes:
Reputed to be "The Father of the Prohibition Party"
Methodist minister known locally as "Father Russell" and was in fact the father of 8 children.

Benjamin Gratz Brown

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.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass, ca. February 1818 (Cordova, Md.) – February 20, 1895 (Washington, DC)

VP candidate for Equal Rights Party (aka People's Party aka Cosmo-Political Party aka National Radical Reformers) (1872)

Running mate with nominee: Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927)
Popular vote: 0 (0%)            
Electoral vote: 0/352

The campaign:

Our brief thumbnail format cannot really give justice to just how far ahead of their time and how visionary both names on this ticket were. Even after a century and a half these two seem so modern. 

The fact that Woodhull was female and had an African-American running mate stirred up so much controversy that little notice was paid to her age-- she was too young to be President according to the requirements of the Constitution.

Douglass had no role in the campaign. He was nominated without his permission, did not participate in any electioneering for Woodhull, and apparently never made any public statement regarding being a VP candidate. On the contrary, he did some campaigning for Grant and was a presidential elector at large for New York for the Republicans.

The Woodhull/Douglass ticket did not appear on any official ballots but no doubt they did receive a number of write-in votes.

Election history:
1888 - Nomination for US President (Republican) - defeated

Other occupations: slave, preacher, abolitionist, author, newspaper publisher, human rights activist, US Ambassador to Haiti 1889-1891, US Marshal for Washington DC, Recorder of Deeds for Washington DC

Buried: Mount Hope Cemetery (Rochester, NY)

Notes:

Douglass quotes--

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."

"I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress."

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground."

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."

"The great fact underlying the claim for universal suffrage is that every man is himself and belongs to himself, and represents his own individuality, not only in form and features, but in thought and feeling. And the same is true of woman. She is herself, and can be nobody else than herself. Her selfhood is as perfect and as absolute as is the selfhood of man."

"Whatever the future may have in store for us, one thing is certain; this new revolution in human thought will never go backward. When a great truth once gets abroad in the world, no power on earth can imprison it, or prescribe its limits, or suppress it. It is bound to go on till it becomes the thought of the world. Such a truth is woman’s right to equal liberty with man. She was born with it. It was hers before she comprehended it. It is inscribed upon all the powers and faculties of her soul, and no custom, law, or usage can ever destroy it. Now that it has got fairly fixed in the minds of the few, it is bound to become fixed in the minds of the many, and be supported at last by a great cloud of witnesses, which no man can number and no power can withstand."

John Quincy Adams II

John Quincy Adams II, September 22, 1833 (Boston, Mass.) – August 14, 1894 (Quincy, Mass.)

VP candidate for Straight-Out Democratic Party (1872)

Running mate with nominee: Charles O'Conor (1804-1884)
Popular vote: 18,602 (0.3%)            
Electoral vote: 0/352

The campaign:
The Straight-Out Democratic Party was part of a major double-split reflecting one of the shifts in post-Civil War party politics.

The first split came from the Republicans. A significant number of Republicans were dissatisfied with the Grant administration and formed the Liberal Republican Party as an alternative, nominating journalist Horace Greeley. The Democratic Party threw in with the LRP and endorsed Greeley as well. Well, not all Democrats.

The conservative "Bourbon" Democrats didn't want Grant or Greeley and formed the short-lived Straight-Out Democratic Party. They nominated New York attorney Charles O'Conor for President and John Quincy Adams II for VP. O'Conor had already declined the nomination of the Labor Reform Party (a group that fizzled and later endorsed the Straight-Out Democrats) and also declined the nomination of the second party. Sources conflict, but it appears Adams was not so reluctant about being on the ticket.

The Straight-Outs forged ahead anyway and placed the O'Conor/Adams ticket on the ballot of 18 states. Grant won in a landslide and Greeley died shortly after the election throwing the Electoral College into disarray.

The Straight-Outs did not collect an impressive amount of popular votes, but it is interesting how they went beyond a regional appeal. The states where they polled more than 1% were pretty spread out: Oregon 587 (2.91%), Delaware 488 (2.24%), Texas 2,580 (2.21%), Michigan 2,875 (1.30%), Kentucky 2,374 (1.24%), California 1,061 (1.11%), Vermont 553 (1.04%), Iowa 2,221 (1.03%).

Election history:
1865 - Massachusetts House of Representatives (Republican)
1867 - Massachusetts House of Representatives (Democratic)
1867 - Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic) - defeated
1868 - Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic) - defeated
1868 - Democratic nomination for US President - defeated
1869 - Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic) - defeated
1870 - Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic) - defeated
1870 - Massachusetts House of Representatives (Democratic)
1871 - Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic) - defeated
1873 - Massachusetts House of Representatives (Democratic)
1873 - Lt. Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic) - defeated
1875 - Lt. Governor of Massachusetts (Democratic/Liberal Republican) - defeated
1879 - Governor of Massachusetts (Independent Democratic) - defeated

Other occupations: attorney, US Army Colonel in the Civil War,

Buried: Mount Wollaston Cemetery (Quincy, Mass.)

Notes:
Son of Charles Francis Adams Sr., Free Soil Party VP candidate 1848
Ran an experimental model farm
Harvard graduate 1853
Considered for a Cabinet position by Pres. Cleveland in 1893.
Son Charles Francis Adams III was US Navy Sec. in the Hoover administration.
Grandfather of behavioral sociologist George Casper Homans.