page_title: Horatio Seymour 1868 presidential campaign
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Horatio Seymour 1868 presidential campaign / Background
context_page_description: In 1868, the Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour for President and Francis Preston Blair Jr. for Vice President. The Seymour-Blair ticket ran on a platform which supported national reconciliation and states' rights, opposed Reconstruction, and opposed both Black equality and Black suffrage. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential ticket led by General Ulysses S. Grant benefited from Grant's status as a war hero and ran on a pro-Reconstruction platform. Ultimately, the Seymour-Blair ticket ended up losing to the Republican ticket of General Ulysses S. Grant and House Speaker Schuyler Colfax in the 1868 U.S. presidential election.
context_section_description: The 1868 election occurred three years after the end of the American Civil War and less than a year after President Andrew Johnson's impeachment (Johnson failed to get convicted by one vote). In addition, during the 1868 campaign season, the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in order to secure basic rights for newly freed African-Americans. Some controversy was generated due to the fact that the Republican U.S. Congress made ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment a precondition for the former Confederate states to rejoin the Union.
caption: A map of the results of the 1868 U.S. presidential election. In this election, Grant decisively won the electoral vote.