The Election of 1868

Republican Nominees for 1868. Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax, Republican running mates for the presidency in the 1868 elections.

The United States presidential election of 1868 was the first presidential election to take place after the American Civil War, during the period referred to as Reconstruction. Three of the former Confederate states, Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia, were not yet restored to the Union and therefore could not vote in the election.

The incumbent President, Andrew Johnson, who succeeded to the presidency in 1865 following the assassination of President Lincoln, was unsuccessful in his attempt to receive the Democratic presidential nomination. Instead of Johnson, the Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour, chairman of the convention, after a series of failed ballots with several other candidates vying for nomination. Seymour and the Democratic Party wanted to carry out a Reconstruction policy that would emphasize peaceful reconciliation with the South, a policy similar to that advocated by Abraham Lincoln and President Andrew Johnson.

By 1868, Republicans felt strong enough to drop the Union Party label, but still badly needed to nominate a popular hero for their presidential candidate. The Democratic Party 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 on the first ballot as the party's standard bearer at the Republican convention in Chicago, Illinois, held on May 20-21, 1868. House Speaker Schuyler Colfax, a Radical Republican from Indiana, was nominated for vice-president on the sixth ballot, beating out the early favorite, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio.

The Republican platform supported black suffrage in the South, but agreed to let northern states decide for themselves whether to enfranchise blacks. It also opposed using greenbacks to redeem U.S. bonds, encouraged immigration, endorsed full rights for naturalized citizens, and favored Radical Reconstruction.

The campaign was conducted vigorously. The Republicans were fearful as late as October that they might be beaten. The Democrats were out of favor, and their candidate Seymour had been called a traitor and a troublemaker. Because several Southern states were not yet re-integrated into the union, the votes of thousands of southern Democrats would not be counted.

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 re-open the Civil War they need only elect Horatio Seymour, and some spread stories of bloodshed in the South to prove that Radical Reconstruction was necessary.

Horatio Seymour polled 2,708,744 votes against 3,013,650 for Grant, a fairly close race, but ultimately Grant carried the electoral college, winning the election. Many alleged that had the remaining Southern states taken place in the election, Seymour would have won, but the possible outcome is impossible to know for sure.