At the party's only national convention, held in Cincinnati in 1872, New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley was nominated for president on the sixth ballot, defeating Charles Francis Adams.

We, the Liberal Republicans of the United States in National Convention assembled at Cincinnati, proclaim the following principles as essential to just government.

But when it was realized Adams would never be accepted by the Democrats of the South, with whom the Liberal Republicans were hoping to form an alliance, Greeley's strength increased.

[5] It was generally accepted that Greeley, with the possible exception of Judge Davis, was less objectionable to the South than any of the candidates brought before the Convention.

When Illinois and Kentucky cast votes for Cassius Clay, the former ambassador to Russia made it known that he was not to be considered a candidate.

An Iowa delegate nominated former Interior Secretary Cox, commending him as "the man who was too pure to stay in the stink-hole of Washington."