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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 presidential 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 damaged from Confederate campaigns in the North, with most of it not yet repaired. Republicans passed some of their desired reform on race but were unable to pass a nationwide abolition law due to the opposition of Abraham Lincoln and his moderate faction. They felt that national abolition would upset the fragile harmony between the free states and the slave holding border states who might decide to defect to the Confederacy at any time. This stoked internal divisions within the party.
Democrats largely swept Republicans out of office in the 1866 midterms. Lincoln vetoed their attempts at reversing Republican policy. Democrats then impeached him early in 1868, although they were unable to convict him and remove him from office. The impeachment was seen as unjust by Republicans and fired up some of their otherwise dejected voter base.
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 essentially disqualified from the start, as the public had no taste for war nostalgia at that point in time. Vice President Andrew Johnson still attempted to win the nomination as he felt the public might support his bipartisan credentials and commitment to the Union. His candidacy received little support, however, partially because he was seen as too close to the Lincoln administration- he had publicly come out against the impeachment effort. Most Democrats instead preferred a clean break with a fresh candidate for president.
Other major candidates were Senator George H. Pendleton of Ohio, Sanford E. Church of New York, and Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana. Pendleton had the most support as a firm advocate of peace throughout the entire war, a position that seemed wise in hindsight. Since his entry into the senate in 1866, Democrats had viewed him as an ideological leader of the party. On the first few ballots 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. There was no apparent Republican 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 some of 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. The opposition to abolition by the moderates had galvanized the radical faction and allowed them to take control of the party, with Lincoln's wide unpopularity sinking his faction's prospects. Radical Benjamin Wade was thus 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.
President Lincoln supported Wade's candidacy despite ideological differences between the two men. He knew that a Republican successor to the presidency, however unlikely that was, was the only chance the country had to avoid falling back into the regressive policies of the Democrats. He kept a safe public distance from the ticket to avoid associating it too heavily with his perceived failures during the war.
The Campaign[]
Democrats didn't think they would have to do much to pull out a victory, and they were right. The Republicans had tainted their own image more than enough. Democrats campaigned on returning the country back to normalcy and moving past the war forever. Pendleton wasn't specific on policy proposals. He wished to build unity in the country behind his party, avoiding dividing them with his controversial personal beliefs. Ohio was the main battleground with both of the candidates being from there. Democrats framed the Republicans as northeastern elites who had plunged the country into a foolish war because they couldn't tolerate regional differences. Armed with Pendleton's populist record, they pledged to give the country back to the common man.
Republicans, led by the radicals, aggressively pushed their policies of abolition. Their messaging largely ignored the results of the war but did promise to fight the Confederacy in various ways "until its inevitable collapse." They hoped to capture a defiant, revanchist spirit among the people. Some of the public was receptive, hoping to go all-in on abolitionism and show the Confederacy what a vibrant republic they could be without the specter of slavery. Wade captured his usual radical spirit, urging the populace to embrace full abolition, workers' rights, and equal rights for both Blacks and women. He was disheartened to see his lifelong mission of equality falling out of favor with the public. Most people were done with high idealistic goals and wished to move on from the war, forget the Confederacy, and return to the way America was before all the struggles around slavery. All in all, it was simply tough to vote for a party that had seemingly led the nation to ruin and left millions in a state of mourning and destitution. 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 in a landslide. Turnout was relatively low, but those that did vote were usually Democrats and people directly affected by the war.
Considering the national mood and the large disparity in the popular vote, Wade performed fairly well in the electoral college. The states that he won were Republican strongholds, stubbornly refusing to give in to the Democrats. Most historians agree that some of Wade's overperformance was attributable to Lincoln's impeachment that galvanized voters who saw it as a fraudulent sham against an honest president.
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 national convention in 1872, but the party disbanded completely before the actual election.
The Democrats, meanwhile, now had near-complete control of the government. They reversed the Republican agenda entirely, making slavery legal once more in the territories, repealing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, lowering tariffs, establishing diplomatic relations with the Confederacy, and reforming the monetary system to align with Pendleton's economic populism. The economy saw some upturn largely powered by inflation but crashed with the panic of 1873. Pendleton was popular in his first term, seeming to deliver the calm peace he had promised, but he became very unpopular in his second.
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.
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