United States presidential election, 1868
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The U.S. 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, had alienated so many people that his effort to win the Democratic nomination failed. Instead the Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour to take on the Republican candidate, Civil War hero General Ulysses S. Grant. With Freedmen voting in all of the South, and with massive popularity in the North as the man who won the Civil War, Grant won an impressive victory.
Background
Reconstruction was a hotly debated issue north and south. Seymour ran what historian David Blight has called "arguably the most openly white supremacist election campaign in American history," with the slogan "This Is a White Man's Country, Let White Men Rule."Nominations
Republican Party nomination
General Ulysses S. Grant announced he was a Republican and was unanimously nominated as the party's standard bearer. Speaker Schuyler Colfax was chosen over Ohio's Benjamin Franklin Wade for Vice President.Democratic Party nomination
Two-time New York Governor Horatio Seymour emerged as the Presidential nominee for the Democrats, garnering 317 delegate votes to defeat 1864 Vice Presidential nominee George H. Pendleton (157 delegates), future Vice President Thomas Andrews Hendricks (146) and eventual 1880 Democratic presidential nominee Winfield Scott Hancock. Francis Preston Blair, Jr. was nominated for Vice President.General election
Results
With a relatively narrow popular majority, Grant was able to sweep the Electoral College winning most of the South. Recognizing their dependence on Black votes in the South, the Republicans took steps to safeguard this vote by passing the Fifteenth Amendment, enshrining Black suffrage in the Constitution, although the spirit of the Amendment would be evaded by later local laws in the South for many years.
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.
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
- Reconstruction
- 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
- Third Party System
External links
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