Fremont and the Radical
Democracy
Another potentially serious
challenge to the president’s renomination came from the party’s
first presidential nominee, John C. Fremont, the former western
explorer and present Union general. The two men had crossed
swords earlier when Lincoln had rescinded Frémont’s 1861
emancipation order in Missouri and twice relieved him of
military command. In the absence of another willing candidate,
Republican critics of Lincoln coalesced around Fremont and held
a convention on May 31 in Cleveland, one week before the
scheduled Republican convention in Baltimore. Most of the
movement’s supporters were anti-slavery German-Americans from
Missouri, along with a small group of New England abolitionists
like Wendell Phillips, Frederick Douglass, and Elizabeth Cady
Stanton. This time the president was genuinely concerned and
therefore sent agents to observe and report on the convention.
Adopting the name Radical Democracy, the delegates ratified a
platform that called for the continuation of the war without
compromise (a slap at the Peace Democrats); a Constitutional
amendment banning slavery and authorizing federal protection of
equal rights (ideas later embodied in the post-war 13th and 14th
Amendments and civil rights acts); protection of the rights of
free speech, free press, and the writ of habeas corpus
(aimed at the Lincoln administration’s controversial crackdown
on civil liberties); confiscation of rebel property (a plank
Fremont rejected); enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine (with an
eye to the French in Mexico); a one-term presidency; and,
integrity and economy in government (which was perhaps an
implicit call for civil service reform).
Next, the delegates nominated Fremont for president and John
Cochrane of New York, a former Democratic congressman, for vice
president. Fremont resigned his army commission in order to
accept the nomination. Lincoln’s deputies reported that the
convention was a failure, and the president seemed bemused by
the proceedings. There was some speculation in the press that
the Radical Democracy hoped that the Democrats would endorse the
Fremont-Cochrane ticket, but that expectation went unfulfilled.
In fact, the Fremont campaign failed to pickup momentum and
stalled in the wake of a strong, harmonious National Union
(Republican) Party convention.
By the fall, the fear of a Democratic administration, especially
the likelihood that it would discontinue and even reverse the
emancipation process, gnawed at Fremont, making him open to
Senator Zachariah Chandler’s suggestion that he drop out of the
race. Chandler offered to persuade Lincoln to remove Postmaster
General Montgomery Blair, the general’s Missouri foe. In late
September, Fremont and Cochrane issued public letters
withdrawing from the campaign. Although Fremont had not
stipulated any conditions, Lincoln, to appease the radicals,
asked for and received Blair’s resignation.
The National Union
(Republican) Convention
The nominating convention of the
National Union Party, dominated by Republicans with a scattering
of War Democrats, met in Baltimore on June 7-8, 1864. By that
time, Lincoln’s supporters had thwarted various insurgencies and
secured control of the proceedings. The platform called for
pursuit of the war until the Confederacy surrendered
unconditionally; a constitutional amendment for the abolition of
slavery; aid to disabled Union veterans; continued European
neutrality; enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine; encouragement of
immigration; and construction of a transcontinental railroad. It
also praised the use of black troops and Lincoln’s management of
the war. On the first presidential ballot, Lincoln got all of
the votes except for 22 cast by Missouri delegates for General
Grant (506 of 528). The Missouri faction, however, quickly
changed their votes to make Lincoln’s renomination unanimous.
Like many presidents, Lincoln gave little thought to the vice
presidency; therefore, he left the selection of his running mate
to the convention, expressing no opinion publicly or privately.
Vice President Hannibal Hamlin desired to be renominated, but he
generated little enthusiasm. Some thought it was important
strategically and symbolically to nominate a War Democrat, such
as former U.S. Senator Daniel Dickinson of New York. Dickinson’s
election, though, would likely put pressure on Secretary of
State William Seward, another New Yorker, to resign from the
cabinet. The convention swung to Andrew Johnson, the Union
military governor of Tennessee, who had the double distinction
of being a War Democrat and a Southern Unionist. He was
nominated overwhelmingly on the first vice-presidential ballot.
Since most radicals were satisfied with the party platform and
the direction, though not the pace, of the Lincoln
administration on emancipation, Johnson’s nomination was
palatable to them.
The Democratic
Convention
The Democrats, on the other
hand, were energized by what they saw as the morass of a
stagnant Union war effort: death, debt, and destruction with no
end in sight. Furthermore, several of Lincoln’s key policies
were extremely unpopular: emancipation, the military draft, the
use of black troops, and violations of civil liberties.
Democrats also benefited when the president’s outline of
preconditions for peace negotiations, in his “To Whom It May
Concern” letter of July 1864, included the stipulation that the
Confederate states abolish slavery. Frederick Douglass had to
convince Lincoln not to backpedal on that forward-looking
stance, and the president did stand firm, even though it
undercut his support among War Democrats and conservative
Republicans. Democrats played the race card for all its worth,
insisting that the Republicans were upending traditional race
relations and advocating “miscegenation”—a word for
racially-mixed marriage allegedly coined during the campaign.
The Democratic National
Convention met in Chicago in late August 1864, when Union
military prospects appeared dim. That circumstance strengthened
the Peace wing of the Democratic Party, led by Clement
Vallandigham, a former congressman from Ohio, and Fernando Wood,
a congressman and former mayor from New York City. Their
proposals for a cease-fire and negotiated settlement with the
Confederacy were ratified by the delegates and incorporated into
the official party platform. Confusing the issue, though, the
Democrats overwhelmingly chose General George B. McClellan, a
War Democrat, as their presidential nominee over two peace
candidates, Governor Horatio Seymour of New York and former
Governor Thomas Seymour of Connecticut.
McClellan was the controversial
former general-in-chief of the Union army, praised as an superb
trainer of raw recruits, beloved by his men as the dashing
“Young Napoleon,” yet much criticized for his hesitancy, which
some characterized as cowardice, in committing his troops to
battle, particularly at the Second Battle of Bull Run and Lee’s
retreat after Antietam. U.S. Representative George Pendleton of
Ohio, a Peace Democrat, was selected as the vice-presidential
nominee after former treasury secretary James Guthrie of
Kentucky, the leader on the first ballot, withdrew.
The Campaign
In accepting the nomination,
McClellan rejected the peace plank of the party platform, vowing
instead to prosecute the war with more skill and vigor than
Lincoln. The president despaired of his chance for reelection
and feared that, despite McClellan’s assurance, the momentum of
a Democratic victory would fortify the Peace faction and force
the general to recant his campaign promise. Lincoln, therefore,
made his cabinet sign, sight unseen, a pledge to cooperate with
President-elect McClellan during the interim period to ensure a
speedy Union conquest of the Confederacy before the general’s
inauguration. A few days after McClellan’s nomination, however,
the military tide began to turn in the Union’s favor with the
fall of Atlanta on September 2 to General William Tecumseh
Sherman and subsequent Union successes. Consequently,
McClellan’s star began to fade and the president’s reelection
seemed more likely.
The Republican campaign warned the Union: “Don’t swap horses in
the middle of the stream.” They went beyond that innocuous
slogan, however, to equate opposition to Lincoln and the
Republicans with disloyalty to the Union. They papered the North
with posters of Thomas Nast’s political cartoons, “The Chicago
Platform” and “Compromise with the South,” which depicted the
Democrats essentially as traitors. A Republican pamphlet alleged
there was a clandestine agreement between the Peace Democrats
and the Confederates. In October, party officials distributed
10,000 copies of the report by the judge advocate general of the
army, Joseph Holt, on secret societies of Confederate
sympathizers in the North, implicitly associated with the
Democratic Party.
The Union servicemen were an important segment of Lincoln’s base
of support. Where they had been able to vote in the 1863
off-year elections, they had voted heavily Republican. In the
fall of 1864, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton saw to it that they
were given absentee ballots (when state law allowed) or
furloughs home to vote in person. Lincoln himself wrote to
General Sherman asking him to allow his men from Indiana to
return home in October to vote in that state’s crucial election.
The president asked the same of Generals George Meade and Philip
Sheridan regarding the Pennsylvania election, of General William
Rosecrans concerning the Missouri election, and of Navy
Secretary Gideon Welles relating to the New York election.
Stanton and Holt also used patronage and government contracts to
shore up the Republican political machine.
The Election Results
With 78 percent of the Union
electorate casting ballots, Lincoln was reelected in an
Electoral College landslide, 212 to McClellan’s 21. The 55%
popular vote for the president was the third largest in the
nineteenth century, surpassed only by Jackson’s first victory in
1828 and Grant’s reelection in 1872. McClellan won only New
Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky. Republicans drew support from
native-born farmers, skilled and professional workers, those of
New England descent, younger voters, and military personnel.
Democrats were strongest in the cities and among Irish- and
German-Americans (the most populous immigrant groups). It has
been estimated that Lincoln received 78% of the vote of Union
soldiers and sailors. The figure was not necessary for his
reelection, but was perhaps the margin of victory in a few close
states and, more importantly, of great symbolic value.
Republicans also gained seats in Congress to retain unassailable
control, 149 to 42 in the House and 42 to 10 in the Senate; took
back several state legislatures; and lost only the governorship
of New Jersey (McClellan’s home state).
The Democrats, though, remained a viable party. McClellan
captured 48% of the vote in a bloc of states stretching from
Connecticut to Illinois, and Republican totals declined over
1860 in several key states, such as New York, Pennsylvania, and
Indiana. The two-party system was sound, and Democrats were well
positioned to challenge Republicans in future contests.
Sources consulted: William A.
DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents; David
Herbert Donald, Lincoln (1995); Harold M. Hyman,
“Election of 1864” in
History of American Presidential Elections, vol. III:
1848-1868, ed. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (New York: Chelsea
House Publishers, 1985), pp. 1155-1178; Harper’s Weekly
via HarpWeek; James McPherson, “Abraham Lincoln,” American
National Biography
(online); Phillip Shaw Paludan, The Presidency of Abraham
Lincoln (1994); and, Jon Schaff, “The Domestic Lincoln:
White House Lobbying of the Civil War Congresses,” White
House Studies
(Winter 2002).
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