Liberal Republicans Abandon Reconstruction, Back Greeley

The Liberal Republican Party formed in 1872, nominating newspaper editor Horace Greeley for president on a platform of amnesty for ex-Confederates and ending Reconstruction. Influential editors including E.L. Godkin of The Nation and Charles Dana of the New York Sun declared Reconstruction a failure and argued Black people were unfit for self-government. Harper's Weekly turned against Radical Reconstruction. The movement signaled elite Northern abandonment of freedpeople's protection.