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1860 United States presidential election

The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the states that would become the Confederacy seceding from the Union. This marked the first time that a Republican was elected president. It was also the first presidential election in which both major party candidates were registered in the same home state; the others have been in 1904, 1920, 1940, 1944, and 2016.

The United States had become increasingly sectionally divided during the 1850s, primarily over extending slavery into the western territories. The incumbent president, James Buchanan, like his predecessor, Franklin Pierce, was a Northern Democrat with Southern sympathies. Buchanan also adamantly promised not to seek re-election. From the mid-1850s, the anti-slavery Republican Party became a major political force, driven by Northern voter opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford. From the election of 1856, the Republican Party had replaced the defunct Whig Party as the major opposition to the Democrats. A group of former Whigs and Know Nothings formed the Constitutional Union Party, which sought to avoid disunion by resolving divisions over slavery with some new compromise.

The 1860 Republican National Convention in Chicago nominated Abraham Lincoln, a moderate former one-term Whig Representative from Illinois. Its platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the South but opposed extension of slavery into the territories. The 1860 Democratic National Convention adjourned in Charleston, South Carolina, without agreeing on a nominee, but a second convention in Baltimore, Maryland, nominated Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas's support for the concept of popular sovereignty, which called for each territory's settlers to decide locally on the status of slavery, alienated many radical pro-slavery Southern Democrats, who wanted the territories, and perhaps other lands, open to slavery. With President Buchanan's support, Southern Democrats held their own convention, nominating Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The 1860 Constitutional Union Convention, which hoped to avoid the slavery issue entirely, nominated a ticket led by former Tennessee Senator John Bell.

Lincoln's main opponent in the North was Douglas, who won the popular vote in Missouri, electoral votes in New Jersey, and the second highest popular vote total nationally. Douglas was the only candidate in the 1860 election to win electoral votes in both free and slave states. In the South, Bell won three states and Breckinridge swept the remaining 11. Lincoln's election motivated seven Southern states, all voting for Breckinridge, to secede before the inauguration in March. While Lincoln received no votes in 10 Southern states, this was not due to him being removed from the ballot in those states but rather because of the Republican Party's absence in those states. The American Civil War began less than two months after Lincoln's inauguration, with the Battle of Fort Sumter; afterwards four further states seceded. Lincoln would go on to win re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. The 1860 election was the first of six consecutive Republican victories. Despite Lincoln's commanding victory, this was the first election in American history in which the winner has failed to win his home county, with Lincoln narrowly losing Sangamon County, Illinois to Douglas. However, he would win Gasconade County, Missouri, which as of the 2020 United States presidential election, has voted Republican ever since, marking the beginning of the longest active voting streak for any party at the county level.

Nominations
The 1860 presidential election conventions were unusually tumultuous, due in particular to a split in the Democratic Party that led to both Northern and Southern party conventions.

Republican nomination
Republican candidates:

 * Abraham Lincoln, former representative from Illinois
 * William Seward, senator from New York
 * Simon Cameron, senator from Pennsylvania
 * Salmon P. Chase, governor of Ohio
 * Edward Bates, former representative from Missouri
 * John McLean, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court
 * Benjamin Wade, senator from Ohio
 * William L. Dayton, former senator from New Jersey

Republican Party candidates gallery
The Republican National Convention met in mid-May 1860 after the Democrats had been forced to adjourn their convention in Charleston. With the Democrats in disarray and a sweep of the Northern states possible, the Republicans felt confident going into their convention in Chicago. William H. Seward from New York was considered the front-runner, followed by Salmon P. Chase from Ohio, and Missouri's Edward Bates. Abraham Lincoln from Illinois, was lesser-known, and was not considered to have a good chance against Seward. Seward had been governor and senator of New York and was an able politician with a Whig background. Also running were John C. Frémont, William L. Dayton, Cassius M. Clay, and Benjamin Wade, who might be able to win if the convention deadlocked.

As the convention developed, however, it was revealed that frontrunners Seward, Chase, and Bates had each alienated factions of the Republican Party. Seward had been painted as a radical, and his speeches on slavery predicted inevitable conflict, which spooked moderate delegates. He also was firmly opposed to nativism, which further weakened his position. He had also been abandoned by his longtime friend and political ally Horace Greeley, publisher of the influential New-York Tribune.

Chase, a former Democrat, had alienated many of the former Whigs by his coalition with the Democrats in the late 1840s. He had also opposed tariffs demanded by Pennsylvania and even had opposition from his own delegation from Ohio. However, Chase's firm antislavery stance made him popular with the Radical Republicans. But what he offered in policy he lacked in charisma and political acumen.

The conservative Bates was an unlikely candidate but found support from Horace Greeley, who sought any chance to defeat Seward, with whom he now had a bitter feud. Bates outlined his positions on the extension of slavery into the territories and equal constitutional rights for all citizens, positions that alienated his supporters in the border states and Southern conservatives, while German Americans in the party opposed Bates because of his past association with the Know Nothings.

Into this mix came Lincoln. He was not unknown; he had gained prominence in the 1858 Lincoln–Douglas debates and had represented Illinois in the House of Representatives. Lincoln had been quietly eyeing a run since the debates, ensuring that they were widely published and that a biography of himself was published. He gained great notability with his acclaimed February 1860 Cooper Union speech, which may have ensured him the nomination although he had not yet announced his intention to run. Delivered in Seward's home state and attended by Greeley, Lincoln used the speech to show that the Republican Party was a party of moderates, not crazed fanatics, as Southerners and Democrats claimed. Afterward, Lincoln was in much demand for speaking engagements. As the convention approached, Lincoln did not campaign actively, as the "office was expected to seek the man". So it did at the Illinois state convention, a week before the national convention. Young politician Richard Oglesby found several fence rails that Lincoln may have split as a youngster and paraded them into the convention with a banner that proclaimed Lincoln to be "The Rail Candidate" for president. Lincoln received a thunderous ovation, surpassing his and his political allies' expectations. Lincoln's campaign managers had printed and distributed thousands of fake convention admission tickets to Lincoln supporters to ensure and increase the crowd's support.

Even with such support from his home state, Lincoln faced a difficult task if he was to win the nomination. He set about ensuring that he was the second choice of most delegates, realizing that the first round of voting at the convention was unlikely to produce a clear winner. He engineered that the convention would happen in Chicago, which would be inherently friendly to the Illinois-based Lincoln. He also made sure that the Illinois delegation would vote as a bloc for him. Lincoln did not attend the convention in person and left the task of delegate wrangling to several close friends.

The first round of voting predictably produced a lead for Seward, but not a majority, with Lincoln in second place. The second round eliminated most of the minor contenders, with voters switching mostly to Seward or Lincoln. The convention remained deadlocked, however, and skillful political maneuvering by Lincoln's delegate wranglers convinced some delegates to abandon Seward in favor of Lincoln. Lincoln's combination of a moderate stance on slavery, long support for economic issues, his western origins, and strong oratory proved to be exactly what the delegates wanted in a president. On the third ballot on May 18, Lincoln secured the presidential nomination overwhelmingly. Senator Hannibal Hamlin from Maine was nominated for vice president, defeating Clay. Hamlin was surprised by his nomination, saying he was "astonished" and that he "neither expected nor desired it."

The party platform promised not to interfere with slavery in the states, but opposed slavery in the territories. The platform promised tariffs protecting industry and workers, a Homestead Act granting free farmland in the West to settlers, and the funding of a transcontinental railroad. There was no mention of Mormonism (which had been condemned in the Party's 1856 platform), the Fugitive Slave Act, personal liberty laws, or the Dred Scott decision. While the Seward forces were disappointed at the nomination of a little-known western upstart, they rallied behind Lincoln, while abolitionists were angry at the selection of a moderate and had little faith in Lincoln.

Democratic (Northern Democratic) Party nomination
Northern Democratic candidates:
 * Stephen Douglas, senator from Illinois
 * James Guthrie, former treasury secretary from Kentucky
 * Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia
 * Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon
 * Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York
 * Andrew Johnson, senator from Tennessee
 * Howell Cobb, treasury secretary from Georgia

Democratic Party candidates gallery

At the Democratic National Convention held in Institute Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860, 50 Southern Democrats walked out over a platform dispute, led by the extreme pro-slavery "Fire-Eater" William Lowndes Yancey and the Alabama delegation: following them were the entire delegations of Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas, three of the four delegates from Arkansas, and one of the three delegates from Delaware.

Six candidates were running: Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie from Kentucky, Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter from Virginia, Joseph Lane from Oregon, Daniel S. Dickinson from New York, and Andrew Johnson from Tennessee, while three other candidates, Isaac Toucey from Connecticut, James Pearce from Maryland, and Jefferson Davis from Mississippi (the future president of the Confederate States) also received votes.

Douglas, a moderate on the slavery issue who favored "popular sovereignty", was ahead on the first ballot, but was 56½ votes short of securing the nomination. On the 57th ballot, with Douglas still ahead, but 51½ votes short of the nomination, the exhausted and desperate delegates agreed on May 3 to cease voting and adjourn the convention.

While the Democrats convened again at the Front Street Theater in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 18, 110 Southern delegates (led by "Fire-Eaters") boycotted the convention or walked out after the convention informed them they would not adopt a resolution supporting extending slavery into territories whose voters did not want it.

While some considered Horatio Seymour a compromise candidate for the national Democratic nomination at the reconvening convention in Baltimore, Seymour wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper declaring unreservedly that he was not a candidate for either spot on the ticket. After two ballots - the 59th ballot overall - the remaining Democrats nominated Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois for president. The election would now pit Lincoln against his longtime political rival, whom Lincoln had lost to in the Illinois senate race just two years earlier. That two candidates were from Illinois showed the importance of the West in the election.

While Benjamin Fitzpatrick from Alabama was nominated for vice president, he refused the nomination.

After the convention concluded with no vice presidential nominee, Douglas offered the vice presidential nomination to Herschel V. Johnson from Georgia, who accepted.

Southern Democratic Party nomination
Southern Democratic candidates:

 * John C. Breckinridge, Vice President of the United States
 * Daniel S. Dickinson, former senator from New York
 * Robert Mercer Taliaferro Hunter, senator from Virginia
 * Joseph Lane, senator from Oregon
 * Jefferson Davis, senator from Mississippi

Southern Democratic Party candidates gallery
The delegates who walked out of the convention at Charleston reconvened in Richmond, Virginia on June 11. When the Democrats reconvened in Baltimore, they rejoined (except South Carolina and Florida, who had stayed in Richmond).

When the convention seated two replacement delegations on June 18, they walked out again or boycotted the convention, accompanied by nearly all other Southern delegates and erstwhile Convention chair Caleb Cushing, a New Englander and former member of Franklin Pierce's cabinet.

This larger group met immediately in Baltimore's Institute Hall, with Cushing again presiding. They adopted the pro-slavery platform rejected at Charleston, and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge for president, and Senator Joseph Lane from Oregon for vice president.

Yancey and some (less than half) of the bolters - almost entirely from the Lower South - met on June 28 in Richmond, along with the South Carolina and Florida delegations, at a convention that affirmed the nominations of Breckinridge and Lane.

Besides the Democratic parties in the Southern states, the Breckinridge/Lane ticket was also supported by the Buchanan administration. Buchanan's own continued prestige in his home state of Pennsylvania ensured that Breckinridge would be the principal Democratic candidate in that populous state. Breckinridge was the last sitting vice president nominated for president until Richard Nixon in 1960.

Constitutional Union Party nomination
Constitutional Union candidates:

 * John Bell, former senator from Tennessee
 * Sam Houston, governor of Texas
 * John J. Crittenden, senator from Kentucky
 * Edward Everett, former senator from Massachusetts
 * William A. Graham, former senator from North Carolina
 * William C. Rives, former senator from Virginia

The Constitutional Union Party was formed by remnants of both the defunct Know Nothing and Whig Parties who were unwilling to join either the Republicans or the Democrats. The new party's members hoped to stave off Southern secession by avoiding the slavery issue. They met in the Eastside District Courthouse of Baltimore and nominated John Bell from Tennessee for president over Governor Sam Houston of Texas on the second ballot. Edward Everett was nominated for vice president at the convention on May 9, 1860, one week before Lincoln.

John Bell was a former Whig who had opposed the Kansas–Nebraska Act and the Lecompton Constitution. Edward Everett had been president of Harvard University and Secretary of State in the Millard Fillmore administration. The party platform advocated compromise to save the Union with the slogan "The Union as it is, and the Constitution as it is."

Liberty (Union) Party nomination
Liberty (Union) candidates:
 * Gerrit Smith, former representative from New York

Liberty Party (Radical Abolitionists, Union) candidates gallery
By 1860, very little remained of the Liberty Party, after most of its membership left to join the Free Soil Party in 1848 and nearly all of what remained of it joined the Republicans in 1854. The remaining party was also called the Radical Abolitionists. A convention of one hundred delegates was held in Convention Hall, Syracuse, New York, on August 29, 1860. Delegates were in attendance from New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Massachusetts. Several of the delegates were women.

Gerrit Smith, a prominent abolitionist and the 1848 presidential nominee of the original Liberty Party, had sent a letter in which he stated that his health had been so poor that he had not been able to be away from home since 1858. Nonetheless, he remained popular in the party because he had helped inspire some of John Brown's supporters at the Raid on Harpers Ferry. In his letter, Smith donated $50 to pay for the printing of ballots in the various states.

There was quite a spirited contest between the friends of Gerrit Smith and William Goodell in regard to the nomination for the presidency. In spite of his professed ill health, Gerrit Smith was nominated for president and Samuel McFarland from Pennsylvania was nominated for vice president.

In Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana, slates of presidential electors pledged to Smith and McFarland ran with the name of the Union Party. They received a total of 176 votes in the general election, 0.004% of the total.

People's Party nomination
The People's Party was a loose association of the supporters of Governor Samuel Houston. On April 20, 1860, the party held what it termed a national convention to nominate Houston for president on the San Jacinto Battlefield in Texas. Houston's supporters at the gathering did not nominate a vice presidential candidate, since they expected later gatherings to carry out that function. Later mass meetings were held in northern cities, such as New York City on May 30, 1860, but they too failed to nominate a vice presidential candidate. Houston, never enthusiastic about running for the presidency, soon became convinced that he had no chance of winning and that his candidacy would only make it easier for the Republican candidate to win. He withdrew from the race on August 16, and urged the formation of a Unified "Union" ticket in opposition to Lincoln.

Political considerations
In their campaigning, Bell and Douglas both claimed that disunion would not necessarily follow a Lincoln election. Nonetheless, loyal army officers in Virginia, Kansas and South Carolina warned Lincoln of military preparations to the contrary. Secessionists threw their support behind Breckinridge in an attempt either to force the anti-Republican candidates to coordinate their electoral votes or throw the election into the House of Representatives, where the selection of the president would be made by the representatives elected in 1858, before the Republican majorities in both House and Senate achieved in 1860 were seated in the new 37th Congress. Mexican War hero Winfield Scott suggested to Lincoln that he assume the powers of a commander-in-chief before inauguration. However, historian Bruce Chadwick observes that Lincoln and his advisors ignored the widespread alarms and threats of secession as mere election trickery.

Indeed, voting in the South was not as monolithic as the Electoral College map would make it seem. Economically, culturally, and politically, the South was made up of three regions. In the states of the Upper South, also known as the Border South (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri), unionist popular votes were scattered among Lincoln, Douglas, and Bell, to form a majority in all four. In the Middle South states, there was a unionist majority divided between Douglas and Bell in Virginia and Tennessee; in North Carolina and Arkansas, the unionist (Bell and Douglas) vote approached a majority. Texas was the only Middle South state that Breckinridge carried convincingly. In three of the six Deep South states, unionists (Bell and Douglas) won divided majorities in Georgia and Louisiana and neared it in Alabama. Breckinridge convincingly carried only three of the six states of the Deep South (South Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi). These three Deep South states included the four Southern states with the largest enslaved populations, and consequently the smallest enfranchised free white populations; together, they held only nine percent of Southern whites.

Among the slave states, the three states with the highest voter turnouts voted the most one-sided. Texas, with five percent of the total wartime South's population, voted 75 percent Breckinridge. Kentucky and Missouri, with one-fourth the total population, voted 73 percent pro-Union Bell, Douglas and Lincoln. In comparison, the six states of the Deep South making up one-fourth the Confederate voting population, split 57 percent Breckinridge versus 43 percent for the two pro-union candidates. The four states that were admitted to the Confederacy after Fort Sumter held almost half its population, and voted a narrow combined majority of 53 percent for the pro-union candidates.

In the eleven states that would later declare their secession from the Union and be controlled by Confederate armies, ballots for Lincoln were cast only in Virginia, where he received 1,929 votes (1.15 percent of the total). Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of the votes Lincoln received were cast in border counties of what would soon become West Virginia – the future state accounted for 1,832 of Lincoln's 1,929 votes. Lincoln received no votes at all in 121 of the state's at-the-time 145 counties (including 31 of the 50 that would form West Virginia), received a single vote in three counties and received ten or fewer votes in nine of the 24 counties where he polled votes. Lincoln's best results, by far, were in the four counties that comprised the state's northern panhandle, a region which had long felt alienated from Richmond, was economically and culturally linked to its neighbors Ohio and Pennsylvania and would become the key driver in the successful effort to form a separate state. Hancock County (Virginia's northernmost at the time) returned Lincoln's best result – he polled over 40% of the vote there and finished in second place (Lincoln polled only eight votes fewer than Breckinridge). Of the 97 votes cast for Lincoln in the state's post-1863 boundaries, 93 were polled in four counties along the Potomac River and four were tallied in the coastal city of Portsmouth.

One key difference between modern elections and those of the mid-nineteenth century is that at the time the state did not print and distribute ballots. In theory, any document containing a valid or at least non-excessive number names of citizens of a particular state (provided they were eligible to vote in the electoral college within that state) might have been accepted as a valid presidential ballot; however, what this meant in practice was that a candidate's campaign was responsible for printing and distributing their own ballots (this service was typically done by supportive newspaper publishers). Moreover, since voters did not choose the president directly, but rather presidential electors, the only way for a voter to meaningfully support a particular candidate for president was cast a ballot for citizens of his state who would have pledged to vote for the candidate in the Electoral College. In ten southern slave states, no citizen would publicly pledge to vote for Abraham Lincoln, so citizens there had no legal means to vote for the Republican nominee. In most of Virginia, no publisher would print ballots for Lincoln's pledged electors. While a citizen without access to a ballot for Lincoln could theoretically have still voted for him by means of a write-in ballot provided his state had electors pledged to Lincoln and the voter knew their identities, casting a ballot in favor of the Republican candidate in a strongly pro-slavery county would have incurred (at minimum) social ostracization (of course, casting a vote for Breckinridge in a strongly abolitionist county ran a voter the same risk).

In the four slave states that did not secede (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware), Lincoln came in fourth in every state except Delaware (where he finished third). Within the fifteen slave states, Lincoln won only two counties out of 996, Missouri's St. Louis and Gasconade counties. In the 1856 election, the Republican candidate for president had received no votes at all in twelve of the fourteen slave states with a popular vote (these being the same states as in the 1860 election, plus Missouri and Virginia).

Results
The election was held on Tuesday, November 6, 1860, and was noteworthy for the exaggerated sectionalism and voter enthusiasm in a country that was soon to dissolve into civil war. Voter turnout was 81.2%, the highest in American history up to that time, and the second-highest overall (exceeded only in the election of 1876).

Since Andrew Jackson had won re-election in 1832, all six subsequent presidents had only won one term, while the last four of those had won with a popular vote under 51 percent.

Lincoln won the Electoral College with less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide by carrying states above the Mason–Dixon line and north of the Ohio River, plus the states of California and Oregon in the Far West. Unlike every preceding president-elect, Lincoln did not carry even one slave state; he instead carried all eighteen free states exclusively.

There were no ballots distributed for Lincoln in ten of the Southern states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. This withheld 61 potential electoral votes from Lincoln, a fifth of what was the total 303 available to the other candidates. In a similar divide between North and South electors, Breckenridge carried nine of the ten states that withheld Lincoln from the ballot, the exception being Tennessee.

Lincoln was, therefore, the second President-elect to poll no votes in some states that had a popular vote (the first was John Quincy Adams, who polled no ballots in the popular votes of two states in the election of 1824, the only other election in which there were four major candidates, none of whom distributed ballots in every state). It should be further noted that, prior to the introduction of the secret ballot in the 1880s, the concept of ballot access did not exist in the sense it does today: there was no standardized state-issued ballot for a candidate to "appear" on. Instead, presidential ballots were printed and distributed by agents of the candidates and their parties, who organized slates of would-be electors publicly pledged to vote for a particular candidate. The 1824 and 1860 presidential elections were the only two prior to the introduction of the secret ballot where a winning candidate was so unpopular in a particular region that it was impossible to organize and print ballots for a slate of eligible voters pledged to vote for that candidate in an entire state.

Since 1860, and excluding unreconstructed Southern states in 1868 and 1872, there have been two occasions where a Republican presidential candidate failed to poll votes in every state, while national Democratic candidates have failed to appear on all state ballots in three elections since the introduction of the secret ballot, though in all three, the Democratic candidate nonetheless won the presidency, but none of them were off the ballot in as many states as Lincoln in 1860.

Lincoln won the second-lowest share of the popular vote among all winning presidential candidates in U.S. history. Lincoln's share of the popular vote would likely have been even lower if there had been a popular vote in South Carolina, though conversely it would likely have been marginally higher had he been on the ballot in all of the Southern states. The Republican victory resulted from the concentration of votes in the free states, which together controlled a majority of the presidential electors.

Lincoln's strategy was deliberately focused, in collaboration with Republican Party Chairman Thurlow Weed, on expanding on the states Frémont won four years earlier: New York was critical with 35 Electoral College votes, 11.5 percent of the total, and with Pennsylvania (27) and Ohio (23) as well, a candidate could collect 85 votes, whereas 152 were required to win. The Wide Awakes young Republican men's organization massively expanded registered voter lists, and although Lincoln was not even on the ballot in most Southern states, population increases in the free states had far exceeded those seen in the slave states for many years before the election of 1860, hence free states dominated in the Electoral College. Gasconade County, Missouri has voted for a Republican presidential candidate in every election from 1860 on, which, as of 2024, makes it the longest Republican winning streak in presidential elections in the nation.

The split in the Democratic party is sometimes held responsible for Lincoln's victory even though Lincoln won the election with less than 40% of the popular vote, as much of the anti-Republican vote was "wasted" in Southern states in which no ballots for Lincoln were circulated. Lincoln also won outright majorities in enough states, that if he lost all states that he took with pluralities, he would still have enough electoral votes to win. At most, a single opponent nationwide would have deprived Lincoln of only California, Oregon, and four New Jersey electors, whose combined total of eleven electoral votes would have made no difference to the result since every other state won by the Republicans was won by a clear majority of the vote: in this scenario, Lincoln would have received 169 electoral votes, 17 more than the 152 required to win.

In the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey where anti-Lincoln votes were combined into fusion tickets, Lincoln still won two and split New Jersey. Despite this, a shift of 25,000 votes to the fusion ticket in New York would have left Lincoln with 145 electoral votes - seven votes short of winning the Electoral College - and forced a contingent election in the House of Representatives. Of the five states that Lincoln failed to carry despite polling votes, he received 20 percent of the vote in only one (Delaware), and 10 percent of the vote in only one more (Missouri).

Like Lincoln, Breckinridge and Bell won no electoral votes outside of their respective sections. While Bell retired to his family business, quietly supporting his state's secession, Breckinridge served as a Confederate general. He finished second in the Electoral College with 72 votes, carrying eleven of fifteen slave states (including South Carolina, whose electors were chosen by the state legislature, not popular vote). Breckinridge stood a distant third in national popular vote at eighteen percent, but accrued 50 to 75 percent in the first seven states that would form the Confederate States of America. He took nine of the eleven states that eventually joined, plus the border slave states of Delaware and Maryland, losing only Virginia and Tennessee. Breckinridge received very little support in the free states, showing some strength only in California, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut.

Bell carried three slave states (Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia) and lost Maryland by only 722 votes. Nevertheless, he finished a remarkable second in all slave states won by Breckinridge or Douglas. He won 45 to 47 percent in Maryland, Tennessee, and North Carolina and canvassed respectably with 36 to 40 percent in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Florida. Bell himself had hoped that he would take over the former support of the extinct Whig Party in free states, but the majority of this support went to Lincoln. Thus, except for running mate Everett's home state of Massachusetts, and California, Bell received even less support in the free states than did Breckinridge, and consequently came in last in the national popular vote, at 12.62%.

Douglas was the only candidate who won electoral votes in both slave and free states (free New Jersey and slave Missouri). His support was the most widespread geographically; he finished second behind Lincoln in the popular vote with 29.52%, but last in the Electoral College. His 12 electoral votes are the lowest for a Democrat in history. Douglas attained a 28 to 47% share in the states of the Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, and Trans-Mississippi West, but slipped to 19 to 39% in New England. Outside his regional section, Douglas took 15 to 17% of the popular vote total in the slave states of Kentucky, Alabama, and Louisiana, then 10 percent or less in the nine remaining slave states. Douglas, in his "Norfolk Doctrine", reiterated in North Carolina, promised to keep the Union together by coercion if states proceeded to secede: the popular vote for Lincoln and Douglas combined was 69.17% of the turnout.

The 1860 Republican ticket was the first successful national ticket that did not feature a Southerner, and the election marked the end of Southern political dominance in the United States. Between 1789 and 1860, Southerners had been president for two-thirds of the era, and had held the offices of Speaker of the House and President pro tem of the Senate during much of that time. Moreover, since 1791, Southerners had comprised a majority of the Supreme Court.

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

(a) The popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote.

(b) ''The option of Lincoln was absent from 20.13% of ballots across ten states. He was available to only 79.87% of the voters that were available to the other candidates.''

Results by state
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States that flipped from Democratic to Constitutional Union

 * Kentucky
 * Tennessee
 * Virginia

States that flipped from Know Nothing to Democratic

 * Maryland

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * California
 * Illinois
 * Indiana
 * Pennsylvania

Close states
States where the margin of victory was under 1%:
 * 1)  Virginia 0.09% (156 votes)
 * 2)  Missouri 0.26% (429 votes)
 * 3)  California 0.61% (734 votes)
 * 4)  Maryland 0.79% (722 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 5%:
 * 1)  Oregon 1.83% (270 votes)
 * 2)  Tennessee 3.17% (4,631 votes)
 * 3)  Illinois 3.52% (11,956 votes)
 * 4)  North Carolina 3.85% (3,717 votes)
 * 5)  New Jersey 3.74% (4,523 votes)
 * 6)  Louisiana 4.90% (2,477 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 10%:
 * 1)  New York 7.42% (50,136 votes)  (tipping point state for Lincoln's victory)
 * 2)  Ohio 7.94% (34,388 votes)
 * 3)  Georgia 8.63% (9,216 votes)
 * 4)  Indiana 8.65% (23,524 votes)
 * 5)  Kentucky 8.83% (12,915 votes)

Trigger for the Civil War
Lincoln's victory and imminent inauguration as president was the immediate cause for declarations of secession by seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) from 20 December 1860 to 1 February 1861. They then formed the Confederate States of America. On 9 February 1861, Jefferson Davis was elected president of the Confederacy.

Several other states also considered declaring secession at the time:

 * Missouri convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned permanently.
 * Arkansas convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned temporarily.
 * Virginia convened a secession convention, which voted against secession but remained in session.
 * Tennessee held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed.
 * North Carolina held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed.

All of the secessionist activity was motivated by fear for the institution of slavery in the South. If the President (and, by extension, the appointed federal officials in the South, such as district attorneys, marshals, postmasters, and judges) opposed slavery, it might collapse. There were fears that abolitionist agents would infiltrate the South and foment slave insurrections. (The noted secessionist William Lowndes Yancey, speaking at New York's Cooper Institute in October 1860, asserted that with abolitionists in power, "Emissaries will percolate between master [and] slave as water between the crevices of rocks underground. They will be found everywhere, with strychnine to put in our wells." ) Less radical Southerners thought that with Northern antislavery dominance of the federal government, slavery would eventually be abolished, regardless of present constitutional limits.

Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that secessionists desired independence as necessary for their honor. They could no longer tolerate Northern state attitudes that regarded slave ownership as a great sin and Northern politicians who insisted on stopping the spread of slavery.

Another bloc of Southerners resented Northern criticism of slavery and restrictions on slavery but opposed secession as dangerous and unnecessary. However, the "conditional Unionists" also hoped that when faced with secession, Northerners would stifle anti-slavery rhetoric and accept pro-slavery rules for the territories. It was that group that prevented immediate secession in Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas when Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. He took no action against the secessionists in the seven "Confederate" states, but also declared that secession had no legal validity and refused to surrender federal property in those states. (He also reiterated his opposition to slavery anywhere in the territories.) Preparing to form an army, on 6 March 1861 Davis called for 100,000 volunteers to serve for twelve months. The political standoff continued until mid-April, when Davis ordered Confederate troops to bombard and capture Fort Sumter.

Lincoln then called for troops to put down rebellion, which wiped out the possibility that the crisis could be resolved by compromise. Nearly all "conditional Unionists" joined the secessionists, including for example presidential candidate John Bell of the Constitutional Union Party, whose home state of Tennessee was the last to secede. The Virginia convention and the reconvened Arkansas convention both declared secession, as did the legislatures of Tennessee and North Carolina; all four states joined the Confederacy. Missouri stayed in the United States, but had an unrecognized dual government.


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1864 United States presidential election

The 1864 United States presidential election was the 20th quadrennial presidential election. It was held on Tuesday, November 8, 1864. Near the end of the American Civil War, incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.

Despite some intra-party opposition from Salmon Chase and the Radical Republicans, Lincoln won his party's nomination at the 1864 National Union National Convention. Rather than re-nominate Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, the convention selected Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a War Democrat, as Lincoln's running mate. John C. Frémont started to run as the nominee of the new Radical Democracy Party, which criticized Lincoln for being too moderate on the issue of racial equality, but Frémont withdrew from the race in September and that new party dissolved. The Democrats were divided between the Copperheads, who favored immediate peace with the Confederacy, and War Democrats, who supported the war. The 1864 Democratic National Convention nominated McClellan, a War Democrat, but adopted a platform advocating peace with the Confederacy, which McClellan rejected. The Confederacy seemed to have survival potential in summer 1864, but was visibly collapsing by election day in November.

Despite his early fears of defeat, Lincoln won strong majorities in the popular and electoral vote, partly as a result of the recent Union victory at the Battle of Atlanta. As the Civil War was still raging, no electoral votes were counted from any of the eleven southern states that had joined the Confederate States of America. Lincoln's re-election ensured that he would preside over the successful conclusion of the Civil War.

Lincoln's victory made him the first president to win re-election since Andrew Jackson in 1832, as well as the first Northern president to ever win re-election. Lincoln was assassinated less than two months into his second term, and he was succeeded by his vice president, Andrew Johnson, who favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union without protection for the former slaves. This led to conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives in 1868. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.

Background
The 1864 presidential election took place during the American Civil War. According to the Miller Center for the study of the presidency, the election was noteworthy for occurring at all, an unprecedented democratic exercise in the midst of a civil war.

A group of Republican dissidents who called themselves Radical Republicans formed a party named the Radical Democracy Party and nominated John C. Frémont as their candidate for president. Frémont later withdrew and endorsed Lincoln. War Democrats joined with Republicans as the National Union Party, with Lincoln at the head of the ticket. The National Union Party was a temporary name used to attract War Democrats and Southern Border State Unionists who would not vote for the Republican Party. It faced off against the regular Democratic Party, including Peace Democrats.

Nominations
The 1864 presidential election conventions of the parties are considered below in order of the party's popular vote.

National Union Party nomination
National Union candidates:
 * Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States
 * Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General from Illinois

Temporary split in the Republican Party
As the Civil War progressed, political opinions within the Republican Party began to diverge. Senators Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson from Massachusetts wanted the Republican Party to advocate constitutional amendments to prohibit slavery and guarantee racial equality before the law. Initially, not all northern Republicans supported such measures.

Democratic leaders hoped that the radical Republicans would put forth their own ticket in the election. The New York World newspaper, particularly interested in undermining the National Union Party, ran a series of articles predicting a delay for the National Union Convention until late in 1864 to allow Frémont time to collect delegates to win the nomination. Frémont supporters in New York City established a newspaper called the New Nation, which declared in one of its initial issues that the National Union Convention would be a "nonentity". The New York World also published false information (further purported by Samuel S. Cox) to limit Lincoln's popularity.

National Union Party
Before the election, some War Democrats joined the Republicans to form the National Union Party. With the outcome of the Civil War still in doubt, some political leaders, including Salmon P. Chase, Benjamin Wade, and Horace Greeley, opposed Lincoln's re-nomination on the grounds that he could not win. Chase himself became the only candidate to contest Lincoln's re-nomination actively, but he withdrew in March when a slew of Republican officials, including some within the state of Ohio upon whom Chase's campaign depended, endorsed Lincoln for re-nomination. Lincoln was still popular with most members of the Republican Party, and the National Union Party nominated him for a second term as president at their convention in Baltimore, Maryland, on June 7–8, 1864. The party platform included these goals: "pursuit of the war, until the Confederacy surrendered unconditionally; a constitutional amendment for the abolition of slavery; aid to disabled Union veterans; continued European neutrality; enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine; encouragement of immigration; and construction of a transcontinental railroad." It also praised the use of black troops and Lincoln's management of the war.

With incumbent vice president Hannibal Hamlin remaining indifferent about the prospect of a second term in office, Andrew Johnson, the former senator from and current military governor of Tennessee, was named as Lincoln's vice presidential running-mate. He had been governor of Tennessee from 1853 to 1857 and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857. In his congressional service, he sought passage of the Homestead Bill which was enacted soon after he left his Senate seat in 1862. When the Southern slave states, including Tennessee, seceded, he remained firmly with the Union. He was the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not resign his seat upon learning of his state's secession. In 1862, Lincoln appointed him as military governor of Tennessee after most of it had been retaken. In 1864, Johnson was a logical choice as running mate for Lincoln, who wished to send a message of national unity in his re-election campaign, especially to ensure the electoral votes of the border states.

Others who were considered for the nomination, at one point or another, were former Senator Daniel Dickinson, Major General Benjamin Butler, Major General William Rosecrans, Joseph Holt, and former Treasury Secretary and Senator John Dix.

Democratic Party nomination
Democratic presidential candidates:
 * George B. McClellan, General from New Jersey
 * Thomas H. Seymour, Former Governor of Connecticut

Democratic Party vice presidential candidates gallery
The Democratic Party was bitterly split between War Democrats and Peace Democrats, a group further divided among competing factions. Moderate Peace Democrats who supported the war against the Confederacy, such as Horatio Seymour, were preaching the wisdom of a negotiated peace. After the Union victory at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863, moderate Peace Democrats proposed a negotiated peace that would secure Union victory. They believed this was the best course of action, because an armistice could finish the war without devastating the South. Radical Peace Democrats known as Copperheads, such as Thomas H. Seymour, declared the war to be a failure and favored an immediate end to hostilities without securing Union victory.

George B. McClellan vied for the presidential nomination. Additionally, friends of Horatio Seymour insisted on placing his name before the convention, which was held in Chicago, Illinois, on August 29–31, 1864. But on the day before the organization of that body, Horatio Seymour announced positively that he would not be a candidate.

Since the Democrats were divided by issues of war and peace, they sought a strong candidate who could unify the party. The compromise was to nominate pro-war General George B. McClellan for president and anti-war Representative George H. Pendleton for vice president. McClellan, a War Democrat, was nominated for president over the Copperhead Thomas H. Seymour. Pendleton, a close associate of the Copperhead Clement Vallandigham, balanced the ticket, since he was known for having strongly opposed the Union war effort. The convention adopted a peace platform – a platform McClellan personally rejected. McClellan supported the continuation of the war and restoration of the Union, but the party platform, written by Vallandigham, opposed this position.

Radical Democracy Party vice presidential candidates gallery
The Radical Democracy Convention assembled in Ohio with delegates arriving on May 29, 1864. The New York Times reported that the hall which the convention organizers had planned to use had been double-booked by an opera troupe. Almost all delegates were instructed to support Frémont, with a major exception being the New York delegation, which was composed of War Democrats who supported Ulysses S. Grant. Various estimates of the number of delegates were reported in the press; The New York Times reported 156 delegates, but the number generally reported elsewhere was 350 delegates. The delegates came from 15 states and the District of Columbia. They adopted the name "Radical Democracy Party".

A supporter of Grant was appointed chairman. The platform was passed with little discussion, and a series of resolutions that bogged down the convention proceedings were voted down decisively. The convention nominated Frémont for president, and he accepted the nomination on June 4, 1864. In his letter, he stated that he would step aside if the National Union Convention would nominate someone other than Lincoln for president. John Cochrane was nominated for vice president.

General election
The 1864 election was the first time since 1812 that a presidential election took place during a war.

For much of 1864, Lincoln himself believed he had little chance of being re-elected. Confederate forces had triumphed at the Battle of Mansfield, the Battle of Cold Harbor, the Battle of Brices Cross Roads, the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain and the Battle of the Crater. In addition, the war was continuing to take a very high toll in terms of casualties with campaigns such as Grant's Overland Campaign and the perceived lack of progress. The prospect of a long and bloody war started to make the idea of "peace at all cost" offered by the Ultra Peace Democrats look more desirable.

However, several political and military events eventually made Lincoln's re-election inevitable. In the first place, the Democrats had to confront the severe internal strains within their party at the Democratic National Convention. The political compromises made at the Democratic National Convention were contradictory and made McClellan's efforts to campaign seem inconsistent.

Secondly, the Democratic National Convention influenced Frémont's campaign. Frémont was appalled at the Democratic platform, which he described as "union with slavery". After three weeks of discussions with Cochrane and his supporters, Frémont withdrew from the race in September 1864. In his statement, Frémont declared that winning the Civil War was too important to divide the Republican vote. Although he still felt that Lincoln was not going far enough, the defeat of McClellan was of the greatest necessity. General Cochrane, who was a War Democrat, agreed and withdrew with Frémont. On September 23, 1864, Frémont also brokered a political deal in which Lincoln removed U.S. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair from office, and on September 24 Abraham Lincoln relieved Blair of his duty as Postmaster General. McClellan's chances of victory faded after Frémont withdrew from the presidential race.

Lastly, the storming of Mobile bay on August and the fall of Atlanta on September 2, public confidence in the war effort was restored to the belief that victory is closer than thought.

In the end, the Union Party mobilized the full strength of both the Republicans and the War Democrats under the slogan "Don't change horses in the middle of a stream". It was energized as Lincoln made emancipation the central issue, and state Republican parties stressed the perfidy of the Copperheads.

Results
The American Civil War was in progress and unfinished during this election. Because eleven Southern states plus two claimed additional Southern states had declared secession from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, only twenty-five states participated in the election.

Louisiana and Tennessee had recently been re-captured. They chose presidential electors, but their votes were rejected by Congress due to having recently seceded from the Union. Both states had voted for Lincoln, so it would not have changed the result in any case.

Three new states participated for the first time: Kansas, West Virginia, and Nevada.

Despite Kentucky's state government never fully seceding from the Union, and Kentucky's Confederate Government that was formed at the Russellville Convention being driven from the state in 1862. The Commonwealth had an election participation rate decrease of almost 40% compared to the election of 1860.

McClellan won just three states: Kentucky, Delaware, and his home state of New Jersey. Lincoln won in every state he carried in 1860 except New Jersey, and also carried a state won four years earlier by Stephen Douglas (Missouri), one carried by John C. Breckinridge (Maryland) and all three newly admitted states (Kansas, Nevada and West Virginia). Altogether, 212 electoral votes were counted in Congress for Lincoln – more than enough to win the presidency even if all of the states in rebellion had participated and voted against him.

Lincoln was highly popular with soldiers and they in turn recommended him to their families back home. The following states allowed soldiers to cast ballots: California, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Out of the 40,247 army votes cast, Lincoln received 30,503 (75.8%) and McClellan 9,201 (22.9%), with the rest (543 votes) scattering (1.3%). Only soldiers from Kentucky gave McClellan a majority of their votes, and he carried the army vote in the state by a vote of 2,823 (70.3%) to 1,194 (29.7%).

Of the 1,129 counties making returns, Lincoln won in 728 (64.5%), while McClellan carried 400 (35.4%). One county (0.1%) in Iowa split evenly between Lincoln and McClellan.

This was the last election the Republicans won in Maryland until 1896.

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

(a) The states in rebellion did not participate in the election of 1864. (b) ''The 17 electoral votes from Tennessee and Louisiana were rejected. Had they not been rejected, Lincoln would have received 229 electoral votes out of a total of 251 (250 cast), well in excess of the 126 required to win.'' (c) One elector from Nevada did not vote.

Results by state

 * Source (most states): Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp. 247–57.
 * Source (Tennessee): contemporary Chicago Tribune newspaper.

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

States that flipped from Constitutional Union to National Union

 * Tennessee

States that flipped from Constitutional Union to Democratic

 * Kentucky

States that flipped from Democratic to National Union

 * Maryland
 * Louisiana
 * Missouri

Close states
States in red were won by Republican Abraham Lincoln; states in blue were won by Democrat George B. McClellan.

State where the margin of victory was under 1% (33 electoral votes):
 * 1) New York 0.92% (6,749 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 5% (35 electoral votes):
 * 1) Connecticut 2.76% (2,405 votes)
 * 2) Pennsylvania 3.50% (20,075 votes)
 * 3) Delaware 3.62% (612 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 10% (65 electoral votes):
 * 1) New Hampshire 5.12% (3,562 votes)
 * 2) New Jersey 5.68% (7,301 votes)
 * 3) Indiana 7.19% (20,189 votes)
 * 4) Michigan 7.20% (10,636 votes)
 * 5) Oregon 7.8% (1,431 votes)
 * 6) Illinois 8.8% (30,788 votes) (Tipping-Point State)

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1868 United States presidential election

The 1868 United States presidential election was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, 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. This was the last time that Missouri supported the Republican candidate until 1904. This was also the last time until 1912 that the Democrats carried more electoral votes from the North (46) than from the South (34), though this was partly due to extremely exceptional circumstances involving the Reconstruction, and in 1912 the reversal occurred due to the better Democratic performance nationwide as well as the higher population of the North. This was also the last time the Republicans did better in the popular vote in the South than in the North until 1964, again due to very large majorities in reconstruction states like South Carolina and Tennessee.

Background
In the wake of the Civil War, the civil rights of former slaves was 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.

Republican Party nomination

By 1868, the Republicans felt strong enough to drop the Union Party label, but wanted to nominate a popular hero for their presidential candidate. 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, 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 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. 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, the 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."

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. Grant's antisemitic 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. They became wealthy bankers who donated substantially to Grant's presidential campaign.

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.

Results
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." Blaine, an acute judge of popular sentiment, was at a loss to explain the size of the Democratic vote. Ethnic Irish Catholic and other immigrants had been settling in New York 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.

Democrats did not fare well in most of the South, where newly freed African Americans voted in large numbers for Grant. Republicans carried every southern state except Georgia and Louisiana, where violence by the Ku Klux Klan and Knights of the White Camelia and fraud delivered Democratic majorities.

Along the border, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware went overwhelmingly Democratic; in Kentucky's case influenced by hostility toward the Radical Reconstructionists, which had led to the state's first postwar government being almost entirely composed of former Confederates. No Democratic presidential candidate before or since has attained a higher percentage of the vote in Kentucky or Maryland, where hostility toward black suffrage was very widespread. As for Delaware, only the Democratic tickets of Johnson/Humphrey in 1964 (which was elected with the largest percentage of the popular vote since 1824) and Obama/Biden in 2008 (which had the first Delawarean on a national ticket) carried the state with a larger percentage of the vote.

Two border states, Missouri and West Virginia, both under Republican control, gave their electoral votes to Grant. Seymour narrowly carried his home state of New York, but Blair, largely because of the Radicals' registry system, failed to carry Missouri. The Missouri Democrat exulted: "General Blair is beaten in his ward, his city, his county and his State." In West Virginia, former Confederates were temporarily forbidden from voting or holding public office. About 15,000 to 25,000 white residents were disfranchised as a result.

Of the 1,708 counties making returns, Grant won 991 (58.02%) and Seymour 713 (41.74%). Four counties (0.23%) split evenly between Grant and Seymour. Hence the Democrats, even with all the burdens of the war, still carried only 278 fewer counties than the Republicans. That cemented a solid party comeback at the grassroots level that had begun in local elections in 1867. 7% of counties in northern states voted for a different party from the 1864 election.

The 1868 election is the only election since the Civil War in which the two major party candidates won over 99.9% of the vote. Out of a total of over 5.7 million votes, just 46 ballots were cast for anyone other than Grant and Seymour.

That was the last election in which the Republicans won Tennessee until 1920, the last in which the Democrats won Oregon until 1912, and the last in which the Republicans won Missouri until 1904.

That Grant lost New York to Seymour by 10,000 votes was a source of shame and anger to Republicans. Seymour's victory in New York was made the subject of a federal investigation. On November 4, Horace Greeley spoke at the Union League Club. The ULC promptly petitioned Congress to look into the state vote. The petition was presented to the House of Representatives on December 14 and accepted by a vote of 134–35 (52 abstained). Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax, the Republican candidate for vice president, appointed a committee of seven: five Republicans and two Democrats. The committee was most likely created because the Republicans could not lose New York without a protest. It reported to the House of Representatives on February 23, 1869. The committee decided to take no action, and Seymour retained New York's 33 electoral votes. He was willing to return to the subject as long as he lived.

According to Seymour's biographer, Stewart Mitchell, the Republican Party claimed credit for saving the Union and was bound, bent, and determined to continue to rule it. The margin of Grant's popular majority resulted largely from winning a high percentage of the half-million newly enfranchised men or color. This strategy contrasted strongly with later years, when Republicans could not stop black disfranchisement in the former Confederate states, since they had many new and secure votes in new states in the Western United States.

Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote): (a) ''Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia did not participate in the election of 1868 due to Reconstruction. In Florida, the state legislature cast its electoral vote for Grant by a vote of 40 to 9.''

Results by state
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Louisiana
 * Maryland
 * New York
 * Oregon

Close states
Red font color denotes states won by Republican Ulysses S. Grant; blue denotes those won by Democrat Horatio Seymour.

States where the margin of victory was under 1% (8 electoral votes)
 * 1)  California 0.48% (520 votes)
 * 2)  Oregon 0.74% (164 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 5% (93 electoral votes)
 * 1)  New York 1.18% (9,995 votes)
 * 2)  New Jersey 1.76% (2,870 votes)
 * 3)  Alabama 2.50% (3,746 votes)
 * 4)  Indiana 2.79% (9,572 votes)
 * 5)  Connecticut 2.98% (2,944 votes)
 * 6)  Pennsylvania 4.41% (28,898 votes)

States where the margin of victory was under 10% (35 electoral votes)
 * 1)  North Carolina 6.82% (12,380 votes)  (tipping point state for a Grant victory)
 * 2)  Arkansas 7.37% (3,034 votes)  (tipping point state for a Seymour victory)
 * 3)  Ohio 8.01% (41,546 votes)

Statistics
Counties with highest percent of vote (Republican)
 * 1)  Hancock County, Tennessee 100.00%
 * 2)  Monona County, Iowa 100.00%
 * 3)  Ottawa County, Kansas 100.00%
 * 4)  Jefferson County, Nebraska 100.00%
 * 5)  McDowell County, West Virginia 100.00%

Counties with highest percent of vote (Democratic)
 * 1)  St. Landry Parish, Louisiana 100.00%
 * 2)  Lafayette Parish, Louisiana 100.00%
 * 3)  Jackson Parish, Louisiana 100.00%
 * 4)  De Soto Parish, Louisiana 100.00%
 * 5)  Franklin Parish, Louisiana 100.00%

Counties with highest percent of vote (Other)
 * 1)  DeKalb County, Alabama 0.70%
 * 2)  Sullivan County, New Hampshire 0.11%
 * 3)  Strafford County, New Hampshire 0.09%
 * 4)  Carroll County, New Hampshire 0.02%


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1872 United States presidential election

The 1872 United States presidential election was the 22nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1872. Despite a split in the Republican Party, incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democratic-endorsed Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley.

Grant was unanimously re-nominated at the 1872 Republican National Convention, but his intra-party opponents organized the Liberal Republican Party and held their own convention. The 1872 Liberal Republican convention nominated Greeley, a New York newspaper publisher, and wrote a platform calling for civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Democratic Party leaders believed that their only hope of defeating Grant was to unite around Greeley, and the 1872 Democratic National Convention nominated the Liberal Republican ticket.

Despite the union between the Liberal Republicans and Democrats, Greeley proved to be an ineffective campaigner and Grant remained widely popular. Grant decisively won re-election, carrying 31 of the 37 states, including several Southern states that would not again vote Republican until the 20th century. Grant was the last incumbent to win a second consecutive term until William McKinley's victory in the 1900 presidential election, and his popular vote margin of 11.8% was the largest margin between 1856 and 1904.

On November 29, 1872, after the popular vote was counted, but before the Electoral College cast its votes, Greeley died. As a result, electors previously committed to Greeley voted for four candidates for president and eight candidates for vice president. The election of 1872 also remains the only instance in U.S. history in which a major presidential candidate who won electoral votes died during the election process. This election set the record for the longest Republican popular vote win streak in American history, four elections, a record that was matched by the same party in 1908. In terms of electoral votes, it was improved with a fifth and sixth consecutive victory in 1876 and 1880. Grant thus became the only president to serve two full, consecutive terms between Andrew Jackson (1829–1837) and Woodrow Wilson (1913–1921). Additionally, he is one of only four Republican presidents to have served two full terms in office, the others being Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. Three other Republican presidents: Abraham Lincoln, William McKinley, and Richard Nixon, were also reelected to their second term, but both Lincoln and McKinley were assassinated in 1865 and 1901, respectively, while Nixon resigned in 1974 before the completion of his second term.

Republican Party nomination
At the convention the Republicans nominated President Ulysses S. Grant for re-election, but nominated Senator Henry Wilson from Massachusetts for vice president instead of the incumbent Schuyler Colfax, although both were implicated in the Credit Mobilier scandal which erupted two months after the Republican convention. Others, who had grown weary of the corruption of the Grant administration, bolted to form the Liberal Republican Party.

The opposition fusion nominations
In the hope of defeating Grant, the Democratic Party endorsed the nominees of the Liberal Republican Party.

Liberal Republican Party nomination
An influential group of dissident Republicans split from the party to form the Liberal Republican Party in 1870. At the party's only national convention, held in Cincinnati in 1872, New York Tribune editor and former representative Horace Greeley was nominated for president on the sixth ballot, defeating Charles Francis Adams. Missouri Governor Benjamin Gratz Brown was nominated for vice president on the second ballot.

Democratic Party nomination
The Convention met in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 9–10. Because of its strong desire to defeat Ulysses S. Grant, the Democratic Party also nominated the Liberal Republicans' Greeley/Brown ticket and adopted their platform. Greeley received 686 of the 732 delegate votes cast, while Brown received 713. Accepting the Liberal platform meant the Democrats had accepted the New Departure strategy, which rejected the anti-Reconstruction platform of 1868. They realized that to win the election they had to look forward, and not try to re-fight the Civil War. They also realized that they would only split the anti-Grant vote if they nominated a candidate other than Greeley. However, Greeley's long reputation as the most aggressive antagonist of the Democratic Party, its principles, its leadership, and its activists, cooled Democrats' enthusiasm for the presidential nominee.

Some Democrats were worried that backing Greeley would effectively bring the party to extinction, much like how the moribund Whig Party had been doomed by endorsing the Know Nothing candidacy of Millard Fillmore in 1856, though others felt that the Democrats were in a much stronger position on a regional level than the Whigs had been at the time of their demise, and predicted (correctly, as it turned out) that the Liberal Republicans would not be viable in the long-term due to their lack of distinctive positions compared to the main Republican Party. A sizable minority led by James A. Bayard sought to act independently of the Liberal Republican ticket, but the bulk of the party agreed to endorse Greeley's candidacy. The convention, which lasted only six hours stretched over two days, is the shortest major political party convention in history.

The Liberal Republican Party fused with the Democratic Party in all states except for Louisiana and Texas. In states where Republicans were stronger, the Liberal Republicans fielded a majority of the joint slate of candidates for lower offices; while in states where Democrats were stronger, the Democrats fielded the most candidates. In many states, such as Ohio, each party nominated half of a joint slate of candidates. Even initially reluctant Democratic leaders like Thomas F. Bayard came to support Greeley.

Other nominations
Presidential candidates:

Labor Reform Party
The Labor Reform Party had only been organized in 1870 at the National Labor Union Convention, which organized the Labor Reform Party in anticipation of its participation in the 1872 presidential election. In the lead-up to the 1872 presidential election, state-level affiliates of the party formed and saw limited success. One of its major victories was forming a majority coalition with the Democratic Party in the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 1871 in which William Gove, one of its members, was elected Speaker of the House.

The party's first National Convention meeting was held in Columbus, Ohio, on February 22, 1872. Initially, there was a fair amount of discussion as to whether the party should actually nominate anyone for the presidency at that time, or if they should wait at least for the Liberal Republicans to nominate their own ticket first. Every motion to that effect lost, and a number of ballots were taken that resulted in the nomination of David Davis for president, who was the frontrunner for the Liberal Republican presidential nomination at that time. Joel Parker, the Governor of New Jersey, was nominated for vice president.

While Davis did not decline the presidential nomination of the Labor Reform party, he decided to hinge his campaign in large part on the success of attaining the Liberal Republican presidential nomination, so that he might at least have their resources behind him. After their convention, in which he failed to attain their presidential nomination, Davis telegraphed the Labor Reform party and informed them of his intention to withdraw from the presidential contest entirely. Joel Parker soon followed suit.

A second convention was called on August 22 in Philadelphia, where it was decided, rather than making the same mistake again, that the party would cooperate with the new Straight-Out Democratic Party that had recently formed. After the election, the various state affiliates grew less and less active, and by the following year, the party ceased to exist. Labor Reform party activity continued to 1878, when the Greenback and Labor Reform parties, with other organizations, formed a National Party.

Straight-Out Democratic Party
Unwilling to support the Democratic party ticket (Greeley/Brown), a group of mostly Southern Democrats held what they called a Straight-Out Democratic Party convention in Louisville, Kentucky, on August 11, 1872. They nominated as presidential candidate Charles O'Conor, who declined their nomination by telegram; for vice president they nominated John Quincy Adams II. Without time to choose a substitute, the party ran the two candidates anyway. They received 0.36% of the popular votes, and no Electoral College votes.

Equal Rights Party
Victoria Woodhull is recognized as the first woman to run for president. She was nominated for president by the small Equal Rights Party. Frederick Douglass was nominated for vice president, although he did not attend the convention, acknowledge his nomination, or take an active role in the campaign.

Campaign
Grant's administration and his Radical Republican supporters had been widely accused of corruption, and the Liberal Republicans demanded civil service reform and an end to the Reconstruction process, including withdrawal of federal troops from the South. Both Liberal Republicans and Democrats were disappointed in their candidate Greeley. As wits asked, "Why turn out a knave just to replace him with a fool?" A poor campaigner with little political experience, Greeley's career as a newspaper editor gave his opponents a long history of eccentric public positions to attack. With memories of his victories in the Civil War to run on, Grant was unassailable. Grant also had a large campaign budget to work with. One historian was quoted saying, "Never before was a candidate placed under such great obligation to men of wealth as was Grant." A large portion of Grant's campaign funds came from entrepreneurs, including Jay Cooke, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Alexander Turney Stewart, Henry Hilton, and John Astor.

Women's suffrage
This was the first election after the formation of the National Woman Suffrage Association and the American Woman Suffrage Association in 1869. As a result, protests for women's suffrage became more prevalent. The National Woman's Suffrage Association held its annual convention in New York City on May 9, 1872. Some of the delegates supported Victoria Woodhull, who had spent the year since the previous NWSA annual meeting touring the New York City environs and giving speeches on why women should be allowed to vote. The delegates selected Victoria Woodhull to run for president, and named Frederick Douglass for vice- president. He did not attend the convention and never acknowledged the nomination, though he served as a presidential elector in the United States Electoral College for the State of New York. Woodhull gave a series of speeches around New York City during the campaign. Her finances were very thin, and when she borrowed money from supporters, she often could not repay them. On the day before the election, Woodhull was arrested for "publishing an obscene newspaper" and thus could not cast a vote for herself. Woodhull was ineligible to be president on Inauguration Day, not because she was a woman (the Constitution and the law were silent on the issue), but because she would not reach the constitutionally prescribed minimum age of 35 until September 23, 1873; historians have debated whether to consider her activities a true election campaign. Woodhull and Douglass are not listed in "Election results" below, as the ticket received a negligible percentage of the popular vote and no electoral votes. In addition, several suffragists attemptted to vote in the election. Susan B. Anthony was arrested when she tried to vote and was fined $100 in a widely publicized trial.

Results
Grant won an easy re-election over Greeley, with a popular vote margin of 11.8% and 763,000 votes.

Grant also won the electoral college with 286 electoral votes; while Greeley won 66 electoral votes, he died on November 29, 1872, twenty-four days after the election and before any of his pledged electors (from Texas, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and Maryland) could cast their votes. Subsequently, 63 of Greeley's electors cast their votes for other Democrats: 42 voted for non-candidate Indiana Governor-Elect Thomas A. Hendricks, 18 of them cast their presidential votes for Greeley's running mate, Benjamin Gratz Brown, 2 cast their votes for non-candidate and former Georgia Governor Charles J. Jenkins, and 1 cast his vote for non-candidate U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Davis.

Of the 2,171 counties making returns, Grant won in 1,335 while Greeley carried 833. Three counties were split evenly between Grant and Greeley.

Disputed votes
During the joint session of Congress for the counting of the electoral vote on February 12, 1873, five states had objections that were raised regarding their results. However, unlike the objections which would be made in 1877, these did not affect the outcome of the election.

This election was the last in which Arkansas voted for a Republican until 1972, and the last in which it voted against the Democrats until 1968. Alabama and Mississippi were not carried by a Republican again until 1964, and they would not vote against the Democrats until 1948. North Carolina and Virginia would not vote Republican again until 1928. West Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey would not vote Republican again until 1896.

Table of results

Source (popular vote): Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections Retrieved on November 3, 2022

Source (electoral vote):

(a) These candidates received votes from Electors who were pledged to Horace Greeley, who died before the electoral votes were cast.

(b) Brown's vice-presidential votes were counted, but the presidential votes for Horace Greeley were rejected since he was ineligible for the office of President due to his death.

(c) See Breakdown by ticket below.

(d) ''The 14 electoral votes from Arkansas and Louisiana were rejected. Had they not been rejected, Grant would have received 300 electoral votes out of a total of 366, well in excess of the 184 required to win, and he would have become the first candidate to receive 300 or more electoral votes.''

Source:

Results by state
Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57.

States that flipped from Democratic to Republican

 * Delaware
 * Louisiana
 * New Jersey
 * New York
 * Oregon

States that flipped from Republican to Democratic

 * Missouri
 * Tennessee

Close states
Red font color denotes states won by Republican Ulysses S. Grant; pink denotes those won by Democrat/Liberal Republican Horace Greeley.

States where the margin of victory was under 1% (19 electoral votes)
 * 1)  Maryland 0.69% (927 votes)
 * 2)  Virginia 0.98% (1,816 votes)

Margin of victory between 1% and 5% (32 electoral votes)
 * 1)  Delaware 4.23% (924 votes)
 * 2)  Tennessee 4.32% (7,736 votes)
 * 3)  Arkansas 4.35% (3,446 votes)
 * 4)  West Virginia 4.46% (2,788 votes)
 * 5)  Connecticut 4.81% (4,619 votes)

Margin of victory between 5% and 10% (133 electoral votes):
 * 1)  Kentucky 5.87% (11,229 votes)
 * 2)  Alabama 6.38% (10,828 votes)
 * 3)  Indiana 6.41% (22,515 votes)
 * 4)  New York 6.46% (53,456 votes)
 * 5)  Florida 7.04% (2,336 votes)
 * 6)  Ohio 7.09% (37,531 votes)  (tipping point state with rejection of electors in Arkansas and Louisiana)
 * 7)  New Hampshire 8.33% (5,743 votes)  (tipping point state if electors of Arkansas and Louisiana were not rejected)
 * 8)  New Jersey 9.04% (15,200 votes)
 * 9)  Wisconsin 9.16% (18,517 votes)
 * 10)  Georgia 9.94% (13,806 votes)

Breakdown by ticket
(a) The used sources had insufficient data to determine the pairings of 4 electoral votes in Missouri; therefore, the possible tickets are listed with the minimum and maximum possible number of electoral votes each.

(b) Brown's vice-presidential votes were counted, but the presidential votes for Horace Greeley were rejected since he was ineligible for the office of President due to his death.

Demise of the Liberal Republicans
Though the national party organization disappeared after 1872, several Liberal Republican members continued to serve in Congress after the 1872 elections. Most Liberal Republican Congressmen eventually joined the Democratic Party. Outside of the South, some Liberal Republicans sought the creation of a new party opposed to Republicans, but Democrats were unwilling to abandon their old party affiliation and even relatively successful efforts like Wisconsin's Reform Party collapsed. The especially strong Missouri Liberal Republican Party collapsed as the Democrats re-established themselves as the major opposition party to the Republicans. In the following years, former Liberal Republicans became members in good standing of both major parties.


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