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United States presidential election, 1864
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In the United States Presidential election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as president. Lincoln ran under the Republican banner against his former top Civil War general, the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan, and the Radical Republican Party candidate, John C. Frémont. McClellan was the "peace candidate" but did not personally believe in his party's platform. Frémont abandoned his political campaign in September 1864, after he brokered a political deal in which Lincoln removed United States Postmaster General Montgomery Blair from office.
The election of 1864 was conducted during the Civil War, and as such, none of the states controlled by governments loyal to the Confederate States of America participated.
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In the United States Presidential election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was re-elected as president. Lincoln ran under the Republican banner against his former top Civil War general, the Democratic candidate, George B. McClellan, and the Radical Republican Party candidate, John C. Frémont. McClellan was the "peace candidate" but did not personally believe in his party's platform. Frémont abandoned his political campaign in September 1864, after he brokered a political deal in which Lincoln removed United States Postmaster General Montgomery Blair from office.
The election of 1864 was conducted during the Civil War, and as such, none of the states controlled by governments loyal to the Confederate States of America participated. This was the first time any nation held a national election in the midst of a civil war.
Republicans across the country were jittery during the summer of 1864. Confederate forces had triumphed at the Battle of Mansfield and the Battle of the Crater. In addition, the war was continuing to take a very high toll. The prospect of a long, never-ending war started to make the "negotiated peace" offered by the Democrats look more desirable. But then the Democrats had to confront the severe internal strains within their party at the Democratic National Convention. Finally, with William Tecumseh Sherman marching inexorably toward Atlanta and Ulysses S. Grant pushing Lee into the outer defenses of Richmond, it became increasingly obvious that a Union military victory was inevitable and close at hand.
The Lincoln/Johnson ticket ran with the slogan “Don't change horses in the middle of a stream.” Republicans loyal to Lincoln, in opposition to a group of Republican dissidents who nominated John C. Frémont, joined with a number of Democrats to form the National Union Party, to appeal to War Democrats; the new name vanished after the election. Johnson, however, never became a Republican.
The Republican/Union party made an all-out effort to depict the Democrats in the worst way possible. They ridiculed McClellan for his pacifist platform and denounced Democrats as traitorous Copperheads. On November 8, Lincoln won by over 400,000 popular votes and easily clinched an electoral majority. Several states allowed their citizens serving as soldiers in the field to cast ballots, a first in United States history. Soldiers in the Army gave Lincoln more than 70% of their vote.
Nominations
"National Union Party" nomination
Abraham Lincoln was nominated by the Republican Party, which was renamed the "National Union Party” for the 1864 election. Lincoln's nomination was not unanimous, however, as 22 disgruntled opponents of Lincoln voted for Ulysses S. Grant, who was not a candidate. Seeing an opportunity to work with the War Democrats under the Union banner, the convention nominated Military-Governor Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a War Democrat, as Lincoln's running mate over incumbent Vice President Hannibal Hamlin and three other War Democrats - former New York Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, Buchanan cabinet member Joseph Holt and General Ben Butler.
Democratic Party nomination
The Democratic Party was bitterly split between the War Democrats and the anti-war Copperheads. The compromise was to nominate pro-war General George B. McClellan along with an anti-war platform. McClellan defeated Horatio Seymour and others for the nomination; he and ticketmate George H. Pendleton were nominated on a peace platform — a platform McClellan personally rejected.
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. Early on, McClellan was thought to be a heavy favorite to win the election. But McClellan's chances of victory faded after Union victories in Georgia and Virginia, followed by the negotiated withdrawal of John C. Frémont's Radical Republican Party candidacy.
A foretaste of the national election came in the state elections held in the months prior to the presidential election. In these six state elections (Oregon on 6/5, Vermont on 9/6, Maine on 9/11, Ohio and Pennsylvania on 10/10, and West Virginia on 10/26), the Union Republican Party won a sweeping victory. These six states elected 44 Union Republicans in U.S. House races, compared to just 10 Democrats, for a net gain of 18 seats for the Union Republicans. The stage had been set for Lincoln.
Results
Only 24 states participated, because 11 had seceded from the Union and claimed to have formed their own nation: the Confederate States of America (CSA). Three new states participated for the first time: Nevada, West Virginia, and Kansas. The reconstructed portions of Tennessee and Louisiana elected presidential Electors, although Congress did not count their votes.
Source (Popular Vote):
Source (Electoral Vote):
(a) The states in rebellion did not participate in the election of 1864.
(b) One Elector from Nevada did not vote
(c) Andrew Johnson had been a Democrat, and after 1869 was a Democrat. The Republican Party called itself the National Union Party to accommodate the War Democrats in this election.
Close states
Red font color denotes states won by Republican Abraham Lincoln; blue denotes those won by Democrat George B. McClellan.
States where the margin of victory was under 5% (68 electoral votes)
- New York 0.92%
- Connecticut 2.76%
- Pennsylvania 3.51%
- Delaware 3.62%
States where the margin of victory was between 5% and 10% (52 electoral votes)
- New Hampshire 5.12%
- New Jersey 5.67%
- Indiana 7.19%
- Michigan 7.20%
- Oregon 7.80%
- Illinois 8.84%
See also
External links
- Transcript of the 1864
- - Michael Sheppard, Michigan State University
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