1868 United States presidential election

1868 United States presidential election
Mathew Benjamin Brady · Public domain · source
Election name	1868 United States presidential election
Country	United States
Flag year	1867
Type	presidential
Previous election	1864 United States presidential election
Previous year	1864
Next election	1872 United States presidential election
Next year	1872
Election date	November 3–4, 1868
Nominee1	Ulysses S. Grant
Party1	Republican Party
Home state1	Illinois
Running mate1	Schuyler Colfax
Electoral vote1	214
States carried1	20
Popular vote1	3,013,650
Percentage1	52.7%
Nominee2	Horatio Seymour
Party2	Democratic Party
Home state2	New York
Running mate2	Francis Preston Blair Jr.
Electoral vote2	80
Popular vote2	2,706,829
Percentage2	47.3%

1868 United States presidential election was the 21st quadrennial contest, held November 3–4, 1868, to elect the president and vice president of the United States. The election occurred during Reconstruction after the American Civil War and tested the political strength of Republicans and Democrats amid debates over Reconstruction policy, civil rights for formerly enslaved people, and national reconciliation. Union general Ulysses S. Grant defeated former New York governor Horatio Seymour in the electoral college.

Background

The campaign unfolded against the legacy of the American Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the presidency of Andrew Johnson, and the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. Congressional Republicans, including leaders such as Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, had enforced Reconstruction Acts and impeached Andrew Johnson over clashes about authority and civil rights legislation. The war's veteran population, veterans' organizations, and Radical Republicans coalesced around military fame and protective policies for freedpeople advocated by figures like William H. Seward and Benjamin Wade. Meanwhile, Democratic leaders including Horatio Seymour and former president James Buchanan sympathizers appealed to white Southern voters and Northern urban machines such as those led by William M. Tweed and Tammany Hall to resist federal enforcement.

Nominations and campaigns

At the 1868 Republican National Convention delegates in Chicago, Illinois selected Ulysses S. Grant by acclamation as a war hero despite his limited political resume, with Schuyler Colfax nominated as running mate to balance ties to Indiana and the congressional wing of the party. Prominent Republicans like Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Butler, and Oliver P. Morton were considered but yielded to Grant’s national stature after endorsements by veterans and leaders such as Edwin M. Stanton.

The 1868 Democratic National Convention in New York City turned to former governor Horatio Seymour after refusal of candidates including George H. Pendleton and Winfield Scott Hancock, while Francis Preston Blair Jr. was chosen for vice president to appeal to Western Democrats and former Missouri Unionists. Democrats campaigned on themes promoted by figures like Clement Vallandigham and Fernando Wood: opposition to Radical Reconstruction, criticism of military rule in the South, and calls for rapid restoration of state governments. The Republican ticket emphasized protection for freedpeople, enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment groundwork, and economic development championed by leaders such as Salmon P. Chase and Jay Cooke.

Campaign strategies included rallies, parades, and editorials in newspapers like the New York Tribune and the The New York Times, while veterans’ groups and African American civic organizations mobilized freedmen in the former Confederate states, aided by the presence of Freedmen's Bureau personnel and Republican state governments in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Alabama. Democratic appeals found traction in Northern urban wards controlled by political machines and in states with copperhead sympathies traced to figures such as Clement L. Vallandigham.

Election results

Grant won a clear electoral victory, carrying states across the North, Midwest, and parts of the West, while Seymour prevailed in much of the South and in some Northern urban areas. Grant secured 214 electoral votes to Seymour’s 80, capturing 20 states to Seymour’s 8. The popular vote margin was narrower—Grant’s approximately 3,013,650 votes (52.7%) to Seymour’s roughly 2,706,829 votes (47.3%). Closely contested states included New York, Ohio, and Indiana, which were pivotal in the electoral math shaped by urban immigrant populations, veterans, and racial enfranchisement. Voter turnout was high relative to prior peacetime elections, influenced by the mobilization of veterans and freedpeople and contested registration practices in Reconstruction states.

Aftermath and significance

Grant’s victory consolidated Republican control of the executive branch and validated policies advocated by Radical Republicans in Congress, including military oversight of Reconstruction and legislation to protect African American voting rights that would culminate in the later Enforcement Acts. The administration that followed involved Cabinet figures and allies such as William H. Seward, Elihu B. Washburne, and Benjamin Bristow, and confronted issues including corruption scandals later associated with the Whiskey Ring and controversies over patronage raised by Carl Schurz and Horace Greeley.

The result influenced Southern resistance movements and the development of the Redeemers and white supremacist organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan legacy—many of whose earlier iterations were active during Reconstruction—prompting federal responses like the Ku Klux Klan Act provisions in the Enforcement Acts of 1870 and 1871. The election also shaped civil rights trajectories, affecting debates among activists including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Helen Hunt Jackson concerning suffrage and citizenship.

Electoral and popular vote analysis

Electoral geography reflected Reconstruction-era enfranchisement and disenfranchisement patterns: Republican dominance where African American male suffrage was implemented by state constitutions and military governance in South Carolina and Louisiana, and Democratic strength where white Southern conservatives and Northern urban machines influenced turnout, notably in New York and Pennsylvania. The popular vote gap of about 6 percentage points underscored regional polarization; analyses by later historians like Reconstruction scholars emphasize the role of veterans’ prestige, partisan loyalty forged during the Civil War, and organized mobilization by African American churches and Republican clubs connected to leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Robert Smalls.

Electoral reforms and contested ballots in several states foreshadowed issues that would recur in the 1876 election, while the 1868 outcome set precedents for federal intervention in state electoral processes and for how wartime leadership translated into peacetime political capital, a dynamic later observed in the careers of leaders like Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ulysses S. Grant himself during his presidency.

Category:1868 elections in the United States