1868 United States Presidential Election (Brothers No More)

The United States Presidential Election of 1868, the 21st U.S. presidential election, took place on November 3, 1868. Democrat George H. Pendleton faced off against Republican Benjamin Wade in what would end up being the last presidential election contested by the Republican Party. Blamed with the disastrous results of the Civil War, the Republicans desperately tried to find a way to cling onto national relevance. They failed in this task, and were thoroughly beaten by Pendleton.

Background
This was the first election to be held after the final loss of the Southern states in the Civil War. The country was still far from recovery economically and emotionally. Widows still grieved the seemingly pointless loss of their husbands and sons, and blamed it all on the Republican-controlled government. Infrastructure was immensely damaged from Confederate campaigns in the North, with most of it not yet repaired. The Republicans tried to pass legislation to fix the problems, but they were quickly thrown out of office anyway in 1866. President Abraham Lincoln then sat in the White House, helpless to fix the problems plaguing the country. He considered resigning, but decided it would be better to complete his term. Nothing of note was accomplished over the next two years, as Democrats waited for one of their own to become president.

Democratic Nomination
The Democratic National Convention took place from July 4-9, 1868, in New York City. Numerous candidates sought the nomination, as it was widely expected that the Democratic candidate would cruise to an easy victory in November. Civil War generals and politicians that participated in Lincoln's wartime government were basically disqualified from the start, as the public had no taste for war nostalgia at that point in time. That included Vice President Andrew Johnson and General Winfield Scott Hancock, both of whom were major candidates in OTL.

The major candidates left after these qualifications were former representative George H. Pendleton of Ohio, Sanford E. Church of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. Pendleton had the most support by far, but he fell just short of the vote threshold needed to win the nomination. After a bit of shifting back and forth, and a brief run of popularity by Asa Packer of Pennsylvania, Pendleton was nominated on the 5th ballot. Former Senator Augustus C. Dodge of Iowa was seen as a good vice presidential candidate and would help secure the West for the Democrats.

Republican Nomination
The second-to-last ever Republican National Convention took place from June 20-24 in Chicago. Remaining Republican leaders were unsure what to do. There was no apparent candidate that would be able to atone for the sins of the war and re-energize the Republican base. Delegates were divided on what strategy the party should take to rebuild their popularity: should they go moderate and abandon their old policies, or go radical and push their policies hard? There was even a brief movement to nominate a moderate Democrat like the former Republican Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. Eventually, though, the radicals won out and got Benjamin Wade of Ohio nominated for president. It was hoped that Wade's unwavering loyalty to Republican doctrine and abolitionism would capture the imagination of the American people. The official party platform called for the final abolition of slavery in the U.S., protection of rights of free blacks, and for continued resistance to the South in every way possible. Former representative Reuben Fenton of New York, who had little to do with the war effort, was nominated for vice president.

Abraham Lincoln made a speech a few days after the convention that would end up being his last public appearance. In the address, he supported abolition of slavery and wished Wade good luck in his candidacy.

The Campaign
The Democrats didn't think they would have to do much to pull out a victory, and they were right. They campaigned on returning the country back to normalcy and moving past the war forever. Ohio was the main battleground with both of the candidates being from there. If Pendleton could win Ohio, he knew he would win the election.

The Republicans aggressively pushed their policies of abolition. They mostly ignored the results of the war, but did promise to fight the Confederacy in various ways "until its end." They hoped to capture a defiant, revanchist spirit among the people, but such a spirit was nowhere to be found. Most people wished to move on from the war, forget the Confederacy, and return to the way America was before all the struggles around slavery. Wade realized the situation was bleak, but Republicans held out hope until the very end that a victory might be captured.

Results and Aftermath
As expected, Pendleton won by a very large margin. Turnout was relatively low, but those that did vote were usually Democrats and people directly affected by the war. People that voted Republican did so mostly out of habit or party loyalty. The Republicans did remain popular with one group, that group being the free black voters.

Considering the national mood and the large disparity in the popular vote, Wade performed fairly well in the electoral college. Three of the six states he won were Republican strongholds (Kansas, Nebraska, and Massachusetts), stubbornly refusing to give into the Democrats. The other three probably went Republican purely due to low turnout by Democrats who expected an easy victory.

This defeat sped up the demise of the Republican Party, with more than 25% of remaining members leaving over the next two years. Even more congressional losses in 1870 caused most of the rest to lose faith and move onto other parties. The Republicans held a nomination convention in 1872, but the party disbanded completely before the actual election.

The Democrats, meanwhile, now had near-complete control of the government. They pushed through laws promoting free trade with the South, lowering tariffs, and protecting the rights of remaining slaveholders in the border states. When historians look back, it is seen as a true irony of history that the same party that mainly caused the Civil War was also the one that benefited the most from it.