Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 1868. In the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horatio Seymour of the Democratic Party. It was the first presidential election to take place after the conclusion of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in the reconstructed Southern states, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act.
Incumbent president Andrew Johnson had succeeded to the presidency in 1865 following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican. Johnson, a War Democrat from Tennessee, had served as Lincoln's running mate in 1864 on the National Union ticket, which was designed to attract Republicans and War Democrats. Upon accession to office, Johnson clashed with the Republican Congress over Reconstruction policies and was impeached and nearly removed from office. Johnson received some support for another term at the 1868 Democratic National Convention, but, after several ballots, the convention nominated Seymour, who had formerly served as Governor of New York. The 1868 Republican National Convention unanimously nominated Grant, who had been the highest-ranking Union general at the end of the Civil War. The Democrats criticized the Republican Reconstruction policies, and "campaigned explicitly on an anti-black, pro-white platform," while Republicans campaigned on Grant's popularity and the Union victory in the Civil War.
Grant decisively won the electoral vote, but his margin was narrower in the popular vote. In addition to his appeal in the North, Grant benefited from votes among the newly enfranchised freedmen in the South, while the temporary political disfranchisement of many Southern whites helped Republican margins. As three of the former Confederate states (Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia) were not yet restored to the Union, their electors could not vote in the election. While readmitted to the Union, the presidential electors of Florida were appointed at the discretion of the state legislature rather than by popular vote.
Partly due to the exceptional circumstances of Reconstruction, this was the last time until 1912 that the Democrats carried more electoral votes from the North (46) than from the South (34), as well as the last time the Republicans did better in the popular vote in the South than in the North until 1964, due to very large majorities in reconstruction states like South Carolina and Tennessee. This was also the last time that Missouri supported the Republican candidate until 1904.
Background
In the wake of the Civil War, the civil rights of former slaves were a hotly debated issue in the Union. Grant supported the Reconstruction plans of the Radical Republicans in Congress, which favored the 14th Amendment, with full citizenship and civil rights for freedmen, including suffrage (the right to vote) for former slaves. The Democratic platform denigrated such rights as "Negro supremacy," and demanded a restoration of states' rights, including the right of southern states to determine for themselves whether to allow suffrage for adult freedmen. The former Confederate States were determined to limit the civil rights of emancipated slaves, and supported the Democratic candidate.
Nominations
Republican Party nomination
By 1868, the Republicans felt strong enough to drop the Union Party label, but wanted to nominate a popular hero as their presidential candidate. General Ulysses S. Grant, widely known throughout the nation for winning the Civil War, announced he was a Republican. Grant was unanimously nominated on the first ballot as the party's standard-bearer at the Republican convention in Chicago, held on May 20–21, 1868. House Speaker Schuyler Colfax, a Radical Republican from Indiana, was nominated for vice president on the sixth ballot, surpassing early favorite, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio.
The Republican platform supported Black suffrage as part of the 14th Amendment's promise of full citizenship for former slaves. It opposed using greenbacks to redeem U.S. bonds, encouraged immigration, endorsed full rights for naturalized citizens, and favored Radical Reconstruction as distinct from the more lenient policies of President Andrew Johnson.
Democratic Party nomination
Democratic candidates:
The Democratic National Convention was held in New York City on July 4–9, 1868 and party leaders were badly divided with little else to agree on outside ending Reconstruction. Eastern Democrats called for war bonds to be redeemed in gold, although many of them had been purchased with badly depreciated greenbacks. Western Democrats on the other hand called for the "Ohio Idea"--redemption in greenbacks as indebted farmers considered that more money in circulation would make repayment of their debts easier. The Ohio Idea would become part of the Democratic Party platform, but would not be espoused by its candidate. The front-runner in the early balloting was George H. Pendleton (1864 Democratic vice presidential nominee), who led on the first 15 ballots, followed in varying order by President Johnson, Winfield Scott Hancock, Sanford Church, Asa Packer, Joel Parker, James E. English, James Rood Doolittle, and Thomas A. Hendricks. The unpopular Johnson, having narrowly survived impeachment, won 65 votes on the first ballot, less than one-third of the total necessary for nomination, and thus lost his bid for election as president in his own right.
Meanwhile, convention chairman Horatio Seymour, former governor of New York, received nine votes on the fourth ballot from the state of North Carolina. This unexpected move caused "loud and enthusiastic cheering," but Seymour refused, saying,
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.
By the seventh ballot Pendleton and Hendricks had emerged as the two front-runners, with Hancock the only other candidate with much support by this point. After numerous indecisive ballots, the names of John T. Hoffman, Francis P. Blair, and Stephen Johnson Field were placed in nomination, but none of these candidates gained substantial support.
For 21 ballots, the opposing candidates battled it out: the East battling the West for control, the conservatives battling the radicals. Pendleton's support collapsed after the 15th ballot, but went to Hancock rather than Hendricks, leaving the convention still deadlocked. The two leading candidates were determined that the other should not receive the presidential nomination; because of the two-thirds rule of the convention, a compromise candidate was needed. Seymour still hoped it would be Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, but on the 22nd ballot, the chairman of the Ohio delegation announced, "at the unanimous request and demand of the delegation I place Horatio Seymour in nomination with 21 votes—against his inclination, but no longer against his honor."
Seymour had to wait for the rousing cheers to die down before he could address the delegates and decline.
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 in life 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.
Seymour left the 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, the convention nominated him for president unanimously.
Exhausted, the delegates unanimously nominated General Francis Preston Blair Jr., for vice president on the first ballot after John A. McClernand, Augustus C. Dodge, and Thomas Ewing Jr., withdrew their names from consideration. Blair's nomination reflected a desire to balance the ticket east and west as well as north and south.
Blair had worked hard for the Democratic vice presidential nomination and accepted second place on the ticket, finding himself in controversy. He had gained attention for an inflammatory letter addressed to Colonel James O. Broadhead, dated a few days before the convention met, in which he wrote that the "real and only issue in this contest was the overthrow of Reconstruction, as the radical Republicans had forced it in the South."
General election
Campaign
The 1868 campaign of Horatio Seymour versus Ulysses S. Grant was conducted vigorously, being fought out largely on the question of how Reconstruction should be conducted.
Seymour's campaign was marked by pronounced appeals to racism with repeated attempts to brand General Grant as the "Nigger" candidate and Seymour as the "White Man's" candidate. Denouncing the Republicans' Reconstruction policy as allegedly subjecting the South "to military despotism and negro supremacy," Democrats campaigned on the motto, "This is a white man's country; let white men rule."
Grant's General Order No. 11 during the Civil War became a campaign issue. He apologized in a letter for the controversial order, stating "I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit. Order No. 11 does not sustain this statement, I admit, but then I do not sustain that order. It would never have been issued if it had not been telegraphed the moment it was penned and without reflection." In his army days he had traded at a local store operated by the Seligman brothers, two Jewish merchants who became Grant's lifelong friends.
Grant took no part in the campaign and made no promises. The Republican campaign theme, "Let us have peace," was taken from his letter of acceptance. 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.
Seymour answered none of the charges made against him, but made a few key speeches. Some newspapers exaggerated his faults. As governor, Seymour had sent troops to Gettysburg, but some press tried to portray him as disloyal to the Union. 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 New York draft rioters "my friends." The Hartford Post called him "almost as much of a corpse" as ex-President James Buchanan, who had just died. Additionally, Republicans alleged that insanity ran through the Seymour family, citing as evidence the suicide of his father.
Blair went on a national speaking tour in which he framed the contest with Ulysses S. Grant and the pro-Reconstruction Republicans in stark racial terms, warning of the rule of "a semi-barbarous race of blacks who are worshipers of fetishes and poligamists" and wanted to "subject the white women to their unbridled lust." Republicans advised Americans not to vote for Seymour, as Blair might succeed him.
Blair had a reputation for outspokenness and his campaign speeches in 1868 attacked Radical Republicans. Samuel J. Tilden, a member of the national committee, asked Blair to confine his campaigning to Missouri and Illinois for fear he "would hurt the ticket" because of his stance on Reconstruction.
Seymour, who had not taken an active role in the campaign to this point, went into the canvass, seeking to steer the campaign away from the harshness of Blair's attacks on Radical Reconstruction. Seymour emphasized his idea that change in the South should be accomplished at the state level, without national interference. The Democrats campaigned for immediate restoration of all states, the "regulation of the elective franchise in the states by their citizens", and amnesty for past political offenses, while State civil authority should take precedence over military action. The president and the Supreme Court should be respected rather than attacked, as he claimed the Republicans had done. The Democrats would be careful to reorder national priorities.
As an Eastern "gold" Democrat, Seymour also rejected the Ohio Idea and thus lost the support of the party's Western contingent, which contributed to his ultimate defeat at the ballot box.
Results
1868 Election Victory Address
"The responsibilities of the position I feel, but accept them without fear, if I can have the same support which has been given to me thus far. I thank you and all others who have fought together in this contest—a contest in which you are all interested personally as much, and perhaps more than I am.
I now take occasion to bid you good bye, as I leave here tomorrow for Washington, and shall probably see but few of you again for some years to come; although it would give me great pleasure to make an annual pilgrimage to a place where I have enjoyed myself so much as I have here during the past few months."
31.7% of the voting age population and 80.9% of eligible voters participated in the election. Horatio Seymour polled 2,708,744 votes and Grant 3,013,650.
The closeness of the popular vote surprised the political elite at the time. Republican Representative James G. Blaine called the slender popular majority for Grant "a very startling fact." Normally an acute judge of popular sentiment, Blaine was at a loss to explain the size of the Democratic vote. Ethnic Irish Catholic and other immigrants had been settling in New York City for nearly a quarter century. The narrow margins by which Seymour lost several of the northern states like Indiana, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, and the effects of new black votes in the South provoked the suspicion that a majority of white men voted for Seymour.
Grant won every southern state except Georgia and Louisiana, where fraud and violence by the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of the White Camelia were so severe that it delivered Democratic majorities. Klan violence also led to a steep drop in Republican votes in areas of Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina.