Presidential election in the United States 1868

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21st presidential election
November 3, 1868
			Republican Party
			Ulysses S. Grant / Schuyler Colfax
			electors					214
			be right				3,013,650
									52.7%
			Democratic Party
			Horatio Seymour / Francis Blair
			electors					80
			be right				2,708,744
									47.3%
Election results by state
26 States   Grant / Colfax						8 states   Seymour / Blair
President of the United States
Before the election Andrew Johnson Democratic Party						Elected Ulysses S. Grant Republican Party

The 1868 presidential election in the United States took place on November 3, 1868. It was the first elections in the United States to take place after the Civil War and during the Reconstruction . The re-accession of the former Confederate States of Texas , Mississippi and Virginia to the Union had not yet taken place. Therefore these three states could not take part in the presidential election.

The re-election of incumbent Andrew Johnson failed because of the achievements of his first term, which he had started in April 1865 due to the murder of Abraham Lincoln . Johnson had made many political enemies over the years who boycotted his re-election. Among other things, he refused to grant the freed slaves full civil rights, which led to the hostility of the Radical Republicans faction , and vetoed all reconstruction laws . Johnson was the first president whose vetoes were overruled by the United States Congress . The Democrats put Horatio Seymour up for the election instead . His political opponent was Ulysses S. Grant , the former commander in chief of the Union armies in the American Civil War and the most popular military in the northern states . Grant, originally a Democrat, had grown closer to the Republicans. In May 1868, he accepted the nomination for president with Schuyler Colfax as running mate . His telegram to the Republican National Convention confirming his candidacy contained the catchphrase Let us have peace , which became his successful campaign motto.

Grant was elected 18th President of the United States with 52.7% of the vote.

Web links

Commons : United States Presidential Election 1868  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

literature

• Donald Richard Deskins, Hanes Walton, Sherman C. Puckett: Presidential Elections, 1789-2008: County, State, and National Mapping of Election Data. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 2010, ISBN 978-0-472-11697-3 , pp. 188-197 (= Chapter 23: Ulysses S. Grant's Initial Election. ).
• The Election of 1868 . In Yanek Mieczkowski: The Routledge Historical Atlas of Presidential Elections . Routledge, New York City 2001, ISBN 0-415-92139-2 , pp. 58-60

Individual evidence

1. ^ Encyclopaedia Britannica: United States presidential election of 1868 | United States government. Retrieved June 23, 2019 . 
2. ^ The Election of 1868 . In Yanek Mieczkowski: The Routledge Historical Atlas of Presidential Elections . 2001, p. 58