STATES.Popular Vote.Electoral Vote.
Grant.Seymour.Grant.Seymour.
Maine70,42642,3967—
New Hampshire38,19131,2245—
Vermont44,16712,0455—
Massachusetts136,47759,40812—
Rhode Island12,9936,5484—
Connecticut50,64147,6006—
New York419,883429,883—33
New Jersey80,12183,001—7
Pennsylvania342,280313,38226—
Delaware7,62310,980—3
Maryland30,43862,357—7
Virginia[20]————————
West Virginia29,02520,3065—
North Carolina96,22684,0909—
South Carolina62,30145,2376—
Georgia57,134102,822—9
Florida[21]——————3—
Alabama76,36672,0868—
Mississippi[20]————————
Louisiana33,26380,225—7
Texas[20]————————
Arkansas22,15219,0785—
Missouri85,67159,78811—
Tennessee56,75726,31110—
Kentucky39,566115,889—11
Ohio280,128238,70021—
Michigan128,55097,0698—
Indiana176,552166,98013—
Illinois250,293199,14316—
Wisconsin108,85784,7108—
Minnesota43,54228,0724—
Iowa120,39974,0408—
Nebraska9,7295,4393—
Kansas31,04914,0193—
Nevada6,4805,2183—
California54,59254,0785—
Oregon10,96111,125—3
Totals3,012,8332,703,24921480

There was dispute as to the right of some of the Southern States to participate in the election. It will be seen that West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, and Kentucky had all participated in the election. Fortunately, the disputed States did not in any way affect the result, and Congress passed a joint resolution declaring that none of the rebellious States should be entitled to electoral votes, unless at the time of the election they had adopted Constitutions since the 4th of March, 1867, and had an organized State Government, and unless such States had representation in Congress under the Reconstruction laws. Of course, President Johnson vetoed the measure, but it was promptly passed over the veto by both branches of Congress, and became a law. By that resolution, Virginia, Mississippi, and Texas were absolutely excluded from the election.

The other Southern States had representation in Congress, with the exception of Georgia. The question whether Georgia should be permitted to have her vote counted resulted in a very serious dispute, on which the Senate and the House divided, but Mr. Wade, President of the Senate, in declaring the result, counted the vote of Georgia and precipitated a very disgraceful scene, in which General Butler most offensively assailed the presiding officer. There was no question whatever as to the election of Grant and Colfax, and Congress duly declared them President and Vice-President of the United States.

The contest of 1868 crystallized the “Greenback” sentiment of the country under the leadership of George H. Pendleton, who was the nominee for Vice-President with McClellan in 1864, and who expected to capture the Democratic National Convention of 1868, to nominate himself for President on the Greenback platform. The Pendleton followers were the hustlers of that convention, and they were all decorated with a badge that was an imitation of the greenback. Gold had been at a high premium during the war, and was at a considerable premium in 1868, with resumption apparently very far off. The cheap-money idea had been industriously impressed upon the people by the demagogues of that day, and as many of the obligations of the United States were payable only in lawful money, while the bonds issued during the war were payable in coin, it was easy to make plausible appeal to the prejudices of the industrial classes, who were paying very high prices for all the necessaries of life.

This theory had been very widely discussed by the various shades of opposition to the Republicans, but the Pendleton movement for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency dignified it as a national issue, and it succeeded in making the New York Democratic platform go more than half way in favor of repudiation of our obligations by payment in greenbacks. The greenback issue thus vitalized became a very important one in many of the States and caused strange political revolutions, such as the election of Democratic Governors and Democratic Legislatures in Maine and Ohio.

It is doubtful whether the Republicans could have been lined up squarely in the support of the national credit with any other candidate than Grant, and one of the first acts that he signed as President distinctly provided for the payment in coin of all bonds of the Government bearing interest, and declared also that specie payments should be resumed as speedily as practicable. The Greenback party not only figured largely in State politics, but became formidable as a third party in national contests, and the free-silver theory of to-day is simply the old greenback issue of cheap money in another form.

THE GRANT-GREELEY CONTEST

1872

General Grant was a thorough soldier, with little qualification for civil duties and a natural distaste for politics. I doubt whether he had any defined political policy when he entered the Presidency. He believed in maintaining the credit of the Government, and accepted in a conservative way the general policy of the Republican party, but he knew little or nothing of the political leadership of the nation, and his friends generally felt that the success of his administration would depend very largely upon surrounding him with a Cabinet composed of the ablest and most sagacious men of the party, but Grant cherished no such ideas himself. He evidently assumed that politics could be run by general orders, as an army could be commanded, and it was that mistake that alienated a very large portion of the Republicans from him in the early period of his administration, and culminated in the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati in 1872.

I had frequently met General Grant before his nomination and election to the Presidency, but only in the most casual way on social occasions, and never had any conversation with him, either on politics generally or on his candidacy for the Presidency. I was earnestly in favor of his nomination and election, because I believed that calling him to the Presidency would do more to reconcile the South and give better assurance of sectional tranquillity than the election of any of the leading Republican statesmen of that day. I had just changed my residence to Philadelphia, having suffered serious financial disaster in the burning of Chambersburg by McCausland, and it was my settled purpose after Grant’s election to cease active participation in politics and devote my efforts wholly to my profession.