The Cartoonist and the Candidate, Nast, Greeley and the Campaign of 1872
Dismayed by the scandals of the first Grant administration, “Liberal” Republicans had decided to run their own candidate against the President. They held their convention at Cincinnati in late April and early May, and they selected Greeley as their candidate.
May 16, 2008
by Gray Williams
If you attend the tag sale (or even if you don’t), take the opportunity to visit the Horace Greeley House to view two ongoing special exhibitions.
One of them explores the history of the many Sears, Roebuck houses that were built in New Castle between the two world wars. The other re-enacts the 1872 presidential campaign of Horace Greeley against the incumbent Ulysses S. Grant, as illustrated in the often funny but always relentless cartoons of Greeley’s archenemy, Thomas Nast.
Nast drew some 85 cartoons of Greeley in 1872, from January through November. They are being exhibited in a series of installments corresponding to the months when they were published in Harper’s Magazine. The current installment shows all the cartoons of May, when Greeley won the nomination of the breakaway Liberal Republicans to run against Grant.
Large photo of cartoon
May 18. “Great Expectations.”
Dismayed by the scandals of the first Grant administration, “Liberal” Republicans had decided to run their own candidate against the President. They held their convention at Cincinnati in late April and early May, and they selected Greeley as their candidate.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast, like many other Americans, considered Grant a hero beyond reproach. He portrayed the Liberals as ungrateful, self-righteous, and hypocritical, and Horace Greeley as a bumbling, bombastic fool.
In one of the funniest cartoons of the campaign, Nast borrowed one of Aesop’s fables to lampoon the pretensions of the Liberals.
The mountain of the fable is reduced to a mound of mud in a pigsty. Out of a small hole labeled “Cincinnati Convention” creeps a mouse, its body inscribed “H.G.,” and its tail “Gratz Brown.” The Liberal candidate for Vice President, Governor John Gratz Brown of Missouri, was almost entirely unknown outside his own state.
Looking on in disappointment are New York Senator Fenton, Greeley, Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, and Missouri Senator Carl Schurz. The title of the pamphlet in the pocket of Greeley’s white coat is “What I Know about Geology.” In Schurz’s hat is a document titled “Carl Schurz for Sec. of State,” suggesting the real motive for his support of Greeley. To their right is hotheaded Senator Thomas Tipton of Nebraska, ranting as usual, and carrying packets of speeches by “Tom,” “Dick,” and “Harry.”
Watching from behind the “Liberal mountain” are two Democrats. One is Senator Frank Blair of Missouri, who had run for Vice President in 1868. The other is August Belmont, a wealthy investment banker who was one of the chief financial supporters of the Democratic Party in New York. The split among the Republicans was good news for the Democrats, who hoped to gain from it.
TAG SALE
The New Castle Historical Society Spring Tag Sale will be held on Friday, May 16 and Saturday, May 17, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. under a big tent at the Horace Greeley House, 100 King Street in Chappaqua. Antiques, collectibles, and household miscellany are being given bargain prices as volunteers prepare the sale. Some of the items are from the Society’s famous “Gold in Your Attic” booth at the Chappaqua Antiques Show. Come find a treasure for yourself or a gift for that special someone.
The Nast-Greeley Campaign exhibition was organized by Gray Williams, New Castle Town Historian. 
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