In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

”Never before, in the history of the country have I been willing to see policy in any contingency, have any sort of dominion over principle,” wrote Samuel M. Johnson, a Democrat from New York, to fellow Democrat Horatio Seymour in April 1868. “I think it possible,” Johnson continued, “that in the coming canvass, we shall be called upon to consider not whether we shall sacrifice a principle, but whether we ought to select a candidate exclusively on the ground of his known qualifications. We may find it necessary, in other words, to take matters as we find them, and select a candidate pretty exclusively, on the grounds that he can be elected.”1 In his note to Seymour, Johnson rather effectively summed up the dilemma Democratic Party leaders faced in the North heading into the presidential election of 1868. That year, as had been the case throughout the 1860s, bitter divisions existed among Northern Democrats over what they considered the best strategy to ensure the party’s success in the elections that fall. Emboldened by success in the off-year elections of 1867, many Democrats advocated running a traditional campaign, continuing the party’s strenuous opposition to Radical Republican policies. To those Democrats who endorsed this strategy, it seemed that Northern voters were finally tired of Radical Reconstruction and the Republicans. On the other hand, other party members in the North, men like Samuel Johnson, questioned the Democrats’ continued defiance of the Republican agenda. These Democrats took a more pragmatic approach to the party’s campaign strategies and wondered aloud if their party would do best to throw off the stigma of secession and betrayal left over from the Civil War by making a clean break from the issues of the past. In short, as Northern Democrats entered the presidential campaign of 1868,competinggroupsofthepartystruggledoverwhichdirectiontheparty’s campaign would take that year, and to Northern Democrats, there was little The Fate of Northern Democrats after the Civil War Another Look at the Presidential Election of 1868 Erik B. Alexander The Fate of Northern Democrats after the Civil War 189 that was new about this struggle. Ultimately, the more conservative elements of the party won out, as Democrats ran a relatively traditional campaign in 1868, nominating Horatio Seymour for president and continuing their heavy criticism of the Republicans’ Reconstruction agenda.2 Even as the Northern half of the party appeared to settle on a conservative campaign sharply critical of Republican policy, the internal squabbles of the party hardly subsided, however, as the campaign produced “a ticket and platform representative of a divided and floundering party.”3 In other words, on the surface it appeared that the Democrats were presenting a united front, but beneath the surface was a party full of bitter divisions. Nonetheless, 1868 was more than just a recapitulation and rehashing of the same tired debates the Democratic Party had cycled through for nearly a decade. Rather, this essay argues that 1868 marked a significant turning point for Northern Democrats after the Civil War. Following that failed contest of 1868 in which the Democrats ran a traditionally conservative campaign, many Northern Democrats became frustrated with the direction of the party and blamed their defeat at the hands of Grant and the Republicans on a variety of factors. In particular, Northern Democrats were especially concerned about their susceptibility to Republicans waving the “bloody shirt”; the Republican reaction to vice-presidential nominee Francis Preston Blair Jr.’s infamous “Broadhead letter” that summer was the primary example.4 Ultimately, the defeat in 1868 helped to legitimize and push the arguments of moderate Democrats to the forefront of the party. Democrats in the North faced a crossroads. No longer, it seemed, could the party win standing on the traditional planks of its platform. Following the failure of 1868 and a pattern of electoral defeat throughout the 1860s, Northern Democrats shifted their rhetoric. They flirted with new issues, abandoned old ones, and engaged in political coalitions with third parties in order to reform the party’s image. Northern Democrats thus emerged from the elections in 1868 convinced that the party could no longer win running on its traditional issues. Leaders in the party were eager to explore new campaign strategies and even to seek out new political alliances. This turning point of 1868 of the Northern half of the Democratic Party is important for two reasons. First, the outcome of the 1868 elections resulted in a realization by Northern Democrats that the predominant strategies the party...

Share