The 1872 New York state election was held on November 5, 1872, to elect the governor, the lieutenant governor, a Canal Commissioner, an Inspector of State Prisons and a U.S. Representative-at-large, as well as all members of the New York State Assembly.

John Adams Dix was an American politician and military officer who was Secretary of the Treasury, Governor of New York and Union major general during the Civil War. He was notable for arresting the pro-Southern Maryland General Assembly, preventing that divided border state from seceding, and for arranging a system for prisoner exchange via the Dix–Hill Cartel, concluded in partnership with Confederate Major General Daniel Harvey Hill.