United States presidential election, 1868

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United States presidential election, 1868
November 3, 1868
Nominee		Ulysses S. Grant	Horatio Seymour
Party		Republican	Democratic
Home state		Ohio	New York
Running mate		Schuyler Colfax	Francis Preston Blair, Jr.
Electoral vote		214	80
States carried		26	8
Popular vote		3,013,650	2,708,744
Percentage		52.7%	47.3%
Presidential election results map. red denotes states won by Grant/Colfax, Blue denotes those won by Seymour/Blair, Green denotes those states still under Union martial rule. Numbers indicate the number of electoral votes allotted to each state.
Incumbent President Andrew Johnson National Union Party President-elect Ulysses S. Grant Republican

The United States presidential election of 1868 was the first presidential election to take place during Reconstruction. Three of the former Confederate states (Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia) were not yet readmitted to the Union and therefore could not vote in the election.

The incumbent President, Andrew Johnson (who had ascended to the Presidency in 1865 following the assassination of President Lincoln), was unsuccessful in his attempt to receive the Democratic presidential nomination because he had alienated so many people and had not built up a political base. Instead the Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour to take on the Republican candidate, Civil War hero General Ulysses S. Grant. Grant was one of the most popular men in the North due to his effort in winning the Civil War.

Although Seymour gave Grant a good race in the popular vote, he was buried in the electoral college. It comes as a surprise that the popular vote was so close considering how Grant benefited from many advantages such as massive popularity in the North, Freedmen voting in the entire South, and the disenfranchisement of some Southern whites.

Background

Reconstruction was a hotly debated issue north and south. Seymour wanted to carry out a Reconstruction policy which would emphasize peaceful reconciliation with the South, a policy similar to that advocated by Abraham Lincoln and President Andrew Johnson. Grant, on the other hand, was willing to support the Reconstruction plans of the Radical Republicans in Congress. The Radical Republicans wanted to punish the South and former rebels. The Republican platform left the issue of Black Suffrage in the North to the States while emphasizing granting political rights to the freedmen as the basis for the foundation of Republican Parties in the conquered south.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Republican candidate:

• Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the U.S. Army from Ohio

Candidates gallery

General Ulysses S. Grant of Ohio

Grant/Colfax campaign poster

Grant/Colfax humorous campaign card

By 1868, Republicans felt strong enough to drop the Union Party label. The Republicans badly needed a popular hero for their presidential candidate in 1868. The Democratic Party still controlled many large Northern states that had a great percentage of the electoral votes. General Ulysses S. Grant announced he was a Republican and was unanimously nominated as the party's standard bearer. Speaker Schuyler Colfax, a Radical Republican, was nominated for Vice President.

Democratic Party nomination

Democratic candidates:

• Horatio Seymour, former U.S. governor of New York
• George H. Pendleton, former U.S. representative and 1864 vice-presidential nominee from Ohio
• Thomas A. Hendricks, U.S. senator from Indiana
• Winfield S. Hancock, U.S. Army major general from Pennsylvania
• Andrew Johnson, President of the United States from Tennessee
• Sanford E. Church, former Lieutenant Governor of New York
• Asa Packer, former U.S. representative from Pennsylvania
• James E. English, governor of Connecticut
• Joel Parker, former governor of New Jersey
• James R. Doolittle, U.S. senator from Wisconsin
• Stephen J. Field, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice from California
• Francis P. Blair, former U.S. representative from Missouri
• John T. Hoffman, New York City Mayor from New York
• Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the United States from Ohio

Candidates gallery

Former Governor Horatio Seymour of New York	Former Representative George H. Pendleton of Ohio	Senator Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana	General Winfield S. Hancock of Pennsylvania	President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee
Former Lieutenant Governor Sanford E. Church of New York	Former Representative Asa Packer of Pennsylvania	Governor James E. English of Connecticut	Former Governor Joel Parker of New Jersey	Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin
Associate Justice Stephen J. Field of California	Former Representative Francis P. Blair of Missouri	New York City Mayor John T. Hoffman of New York	Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase of Ohio

Seymour/Blair campaign poster

The front-runner in the early balloting was George H. Pendleton, who led on the first 15 ballots, followed in varying order by incumbent president Andrew Johnson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Sanford Church, Asa Packer, Joel Parker, James E. English, James R. Doolittle, and Thomas A. Hendricks. The unpopular Johnson, having narrowly survived impeachment, reached his peak strength of 65 votes on the first ballot, less than one-third of the total necessary for nomination, thus losing his bid for election as president in his own right.

Meanwhile, convention chairman Horatio Seymour received 9 votes on the fourth ballot from the state of North Carolina. This unexpected move caused "loud and enthusiastic cheering," but Seymour left his chair, advanced to the front of the platform and made his refusal. "I must not be nominated by this Convention, as I could not accept the nomination if tendered. My own inclination prompted me to decline at the outset; my honor compels me to do so now. It is impossible, consistently with my position, to allow my name to be mentioned in this Convention against my protest. The clerk will proceed with the call."

After numerous indecisive ballots, the names of John T. Hoffman, Francis P. Blair, and Stephen J. Field were placed in nomination. However, none of these candidates gained substantial support.

For twenty-one ballots, the opposing candidates were at loggerheads: the east battling the west for control, the conservatives battling the radicals. The two leading candidates were determined that the other should not receive the nomination; because of the two-thirds rule of the convention it was apparent that a compromise candidate would have to be found. Seymour still was hoping it would be Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, but on the twenty-second ballot, the chairman of the Ohio delegation announced that "at the unanimous request and demand of the delegation I place Horatio Seymour in nomination with twenty-one votes-against his inclination, but no longer against his honor."

Seymour had to wait for the none rousing cheers to die down before he could address the delegates and make another refusal. "I have no terms in which to tell of my regret that my name has been brought before this convention. God knows that my life and all that I value most I would give for the good of my country, which I believe to be identified with that of the Democratic party..." "Take the nomination, then!" cried someone from the floor. "..but when I said that I could not be a candidate, I mean it! I could not receive the nomination without placing not only myself but the Democratic party in a false position. God bless you for your kindness to me, but your candidate I cannot be."

Perspiring profusely from the intense heat, excited and overwrought, Seymour left to platform to cool off and rest. No sooner had he left the hall than the Ohio chairman cried that his delegation would not accept Seymour's declination; Utah's chairman rose to say that Seymour was the man they had to have. While Seymour was waiting in the vestibule, mopping his brow, the convention nominated him unanimously, named a vice-presidential candidate in great haste, and shut up shop before Seymour could dash back into the hall and reject their offer still once again.

General Francis Preston Blair, Jr. was nominated unanimously for Vice President on the first ballot after John A. McClernand, Augustus C. Dodge, and Thomas Ewing, Jr. withdrew their names from consideration. Blair had just brought himself into prominence by a violent, not to say a revolutionary letter, addressed to Colonel James O. Broadhead, dated a few days before the convention met. The nomination seemed to be, and probably was, a result of that letter.

General election

Campaign

1868 presidential campaign poster for Ulysses S. Grant, created by superimposing a portrait of Grant onto the platform of the Republican Party.

The 1868 campaign of Horatio Seymour versus Ulysses S. Grant was conducted vigorously. The Republicans were fearful as late as October that they might be beaten. The Democrats were the disinherited party, Seymour had been called a traitor, a troublemaker, the votes of thousands of southern Democrats would not be counted, yet everyone knew that Seymour, the man of charity and peace, would give the warrior Grant a hard race.

Grant took no part in the campaign and made no promises. A line in his letter of acceptance of the nomination became the Republican campaign theme—"Let us have peace." After four years of civil war, three years of wrangling over Reconstruction, and the attempted impeachment of a president, the nation craved the peace Grant pledged to achieve. The voters were told that if they wanted to reopen the Civil War they need only elect Horatio Seymour, spreading lurid tales of murder and massacre in the south to prove that the south needed the heavy foot of the conqueror on her neck. Despite the fervent thanks of Lincoln and Stanton for his quick dispatch of troops to Gettysburg, Seymour was branded in the press as disloyal to the Union.

The Radical Republicans, who had tried to impeach President Johnson for his peaceful attitude toward the south, did their best to impeach Seymour before he ever set foot in Washington. On the low road, Republicans alleged that insanity ran through the Seymour family, citing as evidence the suicide of his father. Henry Ward Beecher branded him a coward and a traitor by declaring him to be "a man who, through all the years of 1860 to 1868, studies how to help southern treason without incurring the risks and pains of overt courageous treasonable acts."

Newspaper descriptions of the life and character of Horatio Seymour were staggering. The New York Tribune led the cartoon campaign with the picture of Seymour standing on the steps of the City Hall calling a mob of murderers "my friends". The New York Post called him "childless, scheming, not studious, selfish, stealthy, earnest of power, feeble, insincere, timid, closefisted, inept, too weak to be enterprising." The Hartford Post called him "almost as much of a corpse" as ex-President Buchanan, who had just died. "Seymour is a little creation; his face is an outlined wriggle; its expression is a dodge. He has a smooth tongue, feeble health, a constant fear of aberration. His art is to wheedle the vain, promise the ambitious, and charm the religious."

Seymour answered none of the charges made against him, but went his quiet way by making a few key speeches, indulging in no violence, no slander, and no fraud. The bitterness and abuse heaped upon him seeped into history through the medium of the unrestrained newspaper and the partisan historian, never to be completely dislodged; his conduct of the campaign did his country and the institution of free elections great good, helped to keep alive the two-party system when the opposition was determined to remain the only party that could hold power.

Results

Horatio Seymour polled 2,708,744 votes against 3,013,650 for Grant. If all the white men of the south had been permitted to vote, the election would have come very close to being a tie. The closeness of the race startled the nation at the time.

The Radical Republicans regarded black suffrage as a way to ensure that the Republicans would not become a minority party of the restored Union.^{[dubious – discuss]} Therefore, the Republicans took steps to protect their political power by passing the Fifteenth Amendment.

Source (Popular Vote): Leip, David. 1868 Presidential Election Results. Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 27, 2005). Source (Electoral Vote): Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996. Official website of the National Archives. (July 31, 2005). ^(a) Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia did not participate in the election of 1868 due to Reconstruction. In Florida, the state legislature cast its electoral vote.

Close states

Red font color denotes states won by Republican Ulysses S. Grant; blue denotes those won by Democrat Horatio Seymour.

States where the margin of victory was under 5% (101 electoral votes)

1. California 0.48%
2. Oregon 0.74%
3. New York 1.18%
4. New Jersey 1.76%
5. Alabama 2.50%
6. Indiana 2.79%
7. Connecticut 2.98%
8. Pennsylvania 4.41%

References

• Gambill, Edward. Conservative Ordeal: Northern Democrats and Reconstruction, 1865-1868. (Iowa State University Press: 1981).
• Edward McPherson. The Political History of the United States of America During the Period of Reconstruction (1875) large collection of speeches and primary documents, 1865-1870, complete text online.[The copyright has expired.]
• Rhodes, James G. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 to the McKinley-Bryan Campaign of 1896. Volume: 6. (1920). 1865-72; detailed narrative history
• Simpson, Brooks D. Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction, 1861-1868 (1991).
• Summers, Mark Wahlgren.The Press Gang: Newspapers and Politics, 1865-1878 (1994)

See also

• American election campaigns in the 19th century
• History of the United States (1865–1918)
• History of the United States Democratic Party
• History of the United States Republican Party
• Reconstruction era of the United States
• Third Party System
• United States House elections, 1868

External links

• 1868 popular vote by counties
• 1868 State-by-state Popular vote
• How close was the 1868 election? - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University

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