cal
reconstruction measures and the fact that he had signed Jefferson
Davis's bail-bond made the "crow" more palatable to the Southern
Democrats. In the campaign Greeley's brilliant speeches were listened to
with great respect. His tour was a personal triumph; but the very
voters who hung eagerly on his speeches felt him to be too impulsive and
opinionated to be trusted with presidential powers. They knew the worst
which might be expected of Grant; they could not guess the ruin which
Greeley's dynamic powers might bring on the country if he used them
unwisely. In the end many of the original leaders of the Liberal
movement supported Grant as the lesser of two evils. The Liberal
defection from the Republican ranks was more than offset by the refusal
of Democrats to vote for Greeley, and Grant was triumphantly reelected.

The Liberal Republican party was undoubtedly weakened by the unfortunate
selection of their candidate, but it scarcely could have been victorious
with another candidate. The movement was distinctly one of leaders
rather than of the masses, and the things for which it stood most
specifically--the removal of political disabilities in the South and
civil service reform--awakened little enthusiasm among the farmers of
the West. These farmers on the other hand were beginning to be very much
interested in a number of economic reforms which would vitally affect
their welfare, such as the reduction and readjustment of the burden of
taxation, the control of corporations in the interests of the people,
the reduction and regulation of the cost of transporation, and an
increase in the currency supply. Some of these propositions occasionally
received recognition in Liberal speeches and platforms, but several of
them were anathema to many of the Eastern leaders of that movement. Had
these leaders been gifted with vision broad enough to enable them to
appreciate the vital economic and social problems of the West, the
Liberal Republican movement might perhaps have caught the ground
swell of agrarian discontent, and the outcome might then have been the
formation of an enduring national party of liberal tendencies broader
and more progressive than the Liberal Republican party yet less likely
to be swept into the vagaries of extreme radicalism than were the
Anti-Monopoly and Greenback parties of after years. A number of western
Liberals such as A. Scott Sloan in Wisconsin and Ignatius Donnelly in
Minnesota championed the f