page_title: Presidency of Andrew Johnson
section_title: 1868 election and transition
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Andrew Johnson / 1868 election and transition
context_page_description: The presidency of Andrew Johnson began on April 15, 1865, when Andrew Johnson became President of the United States upon the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, and ended on March 4, 1869. He had been Vice President of the United States for only 42 days when he succeeded to the presidency. The 17th United States president, Johnson was a member of the Democratic Party before the Civil War and had been Lincoln's 1864 running mate on the National Union ticket, which was supported by Republicans and War Democrats. Johnson took office as the Civil War came to a close, and his presidency was dominated by the aftermath of the war. As president, Johnson attempted to build his own party of Southerners and conservative Northerners, but he was unable to unite his supporters into a new party. Republican Ulysses S. Grant succeeded Johnson as president.
  Johnson, who was himself from Tennessee, favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. He implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction – a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to re-form their civil governments.
context_section_description: Ulysses S. Grant emerged as the likely Republican presidential candidate during the two years preceding the election. Though he had agreed to replace Stanton as Secretary of War, Grant split with Johnson over Reconstruction and other issues. So great was Grant's support among Republicans that many in Congress were reluctant to impeach Johnson due to the fear that it would prevent Grant from becoming president. Grant's backing came primarily from the moderate wing of the party, as many Radical Republicans feared that Grant would pursue conservative policies in office. The 1868 Republican National Convention chose Grant as the party's presidential nominee and Speaker of the House Schuyler Colfax as the vice presidential nominee. Perhaps chastened by Congress's failure to convict Johnson, the party's platform did not endorse universal male suffrage.
  Having failed to build his own party, Johnson sought nomination by the 1868 Democratic National Convention in New York in July 1868. Johnson remained very popular among Southern whites, and he boosted that popularity by issuing, just before the convention, a pardon ending the possibility of criminal proceedings against any Confederate not already indicted, meaning that only Davis and a few others still might face trial. Aside from Johnson, other contenders for the Democratic nomination included former Ohio representative George H. Pendleton, who was relatively unconcerned about Reconstruction and focused his appeal on the continued use of greenbacks, former New York governor Horatio Seymour, who had support among the party's conservative establishment but was reluctant to enter the race, and Chief Justice Salmon Chase. On the first ballot of the convention, Johnson finished second to Pendleton, and Johnson's support fell away as the ballots passed. Seymour won the nomination on the 22nd ballot, while Johnson received only four votes, all from Tennessee. For vice president, the Democrats nominated Francis Preston Blair, who campaigned on a promise to use the army to destroy the Southern governments that, he said, were led by "a semi-barborous race of blacks" who sought to "subject the white women to their unbridled lust."
  The Democratic party platform embraced Johnson's presidency, thanking him for his "patriotic efforts" in "resisting the aggressions of Congress upon the Constitutional rights of the States and the people." Nonetheless, Johnson was embittered by his defeat, and some of his backers suggested the formation of a third party. Seymour's operatives sought Johnson's support, but Johnson remained silent for most of the presidential campaign. It was not until October, with the vote already having taken place in some states, that Johnson mentioned Seymour at all, and he never endorsed him. The campaign centered largely on Reconstruction, and many Democrats hoped that a Seymour victory would lead to the end of Reconstruction and black suffrage.
  Grant won the election, taking 52.7% of the popular vote and 214 of the 294 electoral votes. The election saw a new wave of violence across the South, as the Ku Klux Klan and other groups again sought to suppress the black vote. Seymour won Georgia and Louisiana, but Grant won the remaining former Confederate states that had been restored to the Union. Grant also carried the vast majority of Northern states, though Seymour won his home state of New York.
  Johnson regretted Grant's victory, in part because of their animus from the Stanton affair. In his annual message to Congress in December, Johnson urged the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act and told legislators that, had they admitted their Southern colleagues in 1865, all would have been well. On Christmas Day 1868, Johnson issued a final amnesty, this one covering everyone, including Jefferson Davis. He also issued, in his final months in office, pardons for crimes, including one for Dr. Samuel Mudd, controversially convicted of involvement in the Lincoln assassination (he had set Booth's broken leg) and imprisoned in Fort Jefferson on Florida's Dry Tortugas. In February 1869, Co
caption: Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour in the 1868 election