The Election of 1868 (and 2018)

Since my hometown is Grant City (Mo.), I have long had an interest in, but not much knowledge of, Ulysses S. Grant. My recent reading about him, though, has convinced me that he is a man who should not be taken for granted and that his election in 1868 was one of great importance.

The Election of 1868

Even though my Oct. 30, 2016, blog article was about the presidential election of 1868 (see here), I didn’t write much about Grant, who was the winner of that election and thus became the 18^th POTUS.

For whatever reason, during most of my lifetime Grant seems not to have received the attention and the accolades he has deserved. But he and his accomplishments as President should not be taken lightly.

In one of the most important elections in U.S. history, 150 years ago on November 3, 1868, Grant won a decisive victory that was of great significance to the nation.

His election was especially significant for the American Indians and for the “freedmen,” the former enslaved persons who had a new birth of freedom because of the Civil War.

The Background of the 1868 Election

Hiram Ulysses Grant was born in Ohio in 1822, the son of a tanner—and a fervent abolitionist. When he was 16, Ulysses, the name by which he was called, was nominated to West Point by the district’s U.S. Representative—but his name was mistakenly given as Ulysses S., and the name stuck.

After graduation, Grant distinguished himself as a daring and competent soldier during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. He left the army in 1854 but joined again in 1861, the beginning year of the Civil War.

Grant distinguished himself as a war hero, and after being elevated to the rank of lieutenant general in 1864, he forced and then received Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender in April 1865.

Results of the 1868 Election

Because of his great popularity across the nation—and it has been said that he was more popular in the 19^th century then Lincoln—Grant was nominated unanimously as the Republican candidate for the presidency in 1868.

In spite of his political opponents calling Grant a drunk and accusing him of trying to “Africanize” the South, he won the 1868 election decisively: 214 to 80 electoral votes.

Among the premier accomplishments of Grant’s presidency are these:

** Organized (in April 1869) the Board of Indian Commissioners; this was Grant’s attempt to formulate a new humane policy towards Native American tribes. While not without problems, this “Peace Policy” was a great advancement in the way American Indians had been treated in the U.S. up to this time.

** Ratification (in February 1870) of the 15^th Amendment giving the freed slaves the right to vote.

** Passage of the “Ku Klux Klan” Act (in April 1871) that curtailed the activities of the KKK and other white supremacy organizations; this bill is also called the Civil Rights Act of 1871.  

(Actual 1868 campaign poster with an explanation added)

And What about the Election of 2018?

While not a presidential election, U.S. voters will go to the polls tomorrow (Nov. 6) to determine whether the racist, xenophobic, pro-white supremacy policies and rhetoric of the current administration are going to remain unchecked by a supportive Congress or whether there will be a better balance of power in the U.S. government.

The election of 1868 proved greatly beneficial for people of color then, and I fervently hope and pray that tomorrow’s election will similarly turn out well for people of color, immigrants, Jews, and the poor in contemporary society.

For further reading:

Two recommended books for further study of Grant (and the election of 1868):
** Grant (2002) by Jean Edward Smith, which presents Grant much more positively than most biographies up to that time.
** Grant (2017) by Ron Chernow, the latest, highly-acclaimed, 1000-page tome about Grant.

The Elections of 1868 and 2016

It is, thankfully, just nine days until Election Day. Earlier in the year this was touted as one of the most important elections in U.S. history. Much of the tension in the presidential election, though, has been erased by HRC’s huge lead in the polls.

However, which Party controls the Senate, and even the House, rides upon the outcome of the Nov. 8 election, so it remains an extremely important election.

As the first presidential election after the Civil War, though, the election of 1868 was perhaps even more important than the one this year. 

Background: Pres. Andrew Johnson

As you know, Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, was the Vice-President who was sworn into office on April 15, 1865, three hours after President Lincoln died from the assassin’s bullets. 

Johnson (1808-75) was born in North Carolina but lived in Tennessee from his teenager years. He was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1857 and became the Vice-President on March 4, 1865.

Even though he was not opposed to slavery, Johnson did not support secession and thus opposed Tennessee joining the Confederate States of America in June 1861. He was the only senator from a Confederate state not to resign his senate seat.

Johnson, however, was a southerner, and after the war he wanted to protect the interests of the whites in the South and to welcome them back into the Union quickly and easily. 

In 1866 Congress passed the Civil Rights Bill to protect the rights of the slaves who had been freed, but Johnson vetoed that bill.

Even though Congress overrode Johnson’s veto, he still did much to benefit the white southerners and to repress the equality of the freed slaves. As Hans L. Trefousse writes in Andrew Johnson: A Biography (1989), Johnson “preserved the South as ‘a white man’s country’” (p. 334).

1868: racist Democrats

Johnson’s main political opponents were not just the Republicans but those who were generally called Radical Republicans—men such as Rep. Thaddeus Stephens and Sen. Charles Sumner. They were the leaders in the impeachment of Pres. Johnson in February 1868.

Johnson was so unpopular that he was not chosen to be the Democratic candidate for President in the 1868 election. Horatio Seymour, a former New York governor, was nominated for the office, and Francis P. Blair, Jr., a former U.S. Representative from Missouri, became the nominee for Vice-President.

In his campaign Seymour advocated a policy of conservative, limited government. He also opposed the Reconstruction policies of the Republicans in Congress. His campaign was marked by pronounced appeals to racism with repeated attempts to brand General Ulysses S. Grant as the “Nigger” candidate and Seymour as the “White Man’s” candidate.

Likewise, V-P candidate Blair used “blatantly racist language” in his campaign speeches, setting the tone for what Eric Foner called (in 1990) “the last Presidential contest to center on white supremacy” (A Short History of Reconstruction, p. 145). 

Thankfully, Grant was elected President.

2016: racist Republicans

It is quite obvious that the position of the two Parties have completely reversed since 1868. This year Donald Trump’s main support, by far, is by white voters—and he has the overwhelming support of white supremacists. (See my June 5 article “Can Trump Make America White Again?”.)

While candidate Trump is not as blatantly racist as Seymour and Blair were in 1868, it seems clear that he and many of his supporters are racists. 

Like 1868, the election this year is partly about the equality of all Americans, and I am glad the result will most likely turn out the same way, against racism, as it did then.

The Significance of the Pony Express

As a boy growing up in rural northwest Missouri, St. Joseph was the nearest big city and a place of fascination to me. As a schoolboy I no doubt learned that the Pony Express started in St. Joseph, which we usually called St. Joe. For some reason, however, I grew up not knowing much about the Pony Express.

Learning about the Pony Express

Not long after moving to Liberty in 2005, June and I visited the Pony Express Museum in St. Joe and learned a lot about it then. That is certainly a place worth visiting, and you can check it out online here.

Ms. Kathy Ridge (May 2016)

I learned the most about the Pony Express, though, from hearing Ms. Kathy Ridge give a talk about it on May 29 this year at the Memorial Day gathering at my father’s (long-closed) home church in rural Worth County, Mo. 

Ms. Ridge, a retired elementary school teacher who works as a volunteer at the Pony Express Museum, told not only interesting details about those who rode for the Pony Express but also shared something of its historical significance.

The Pony Express began operation on April 3, 1860, and was a response to the need for faster communication with people who lived in California. After the discovery of gold there in 1848, the population of Calif. grew rapidly and it became a state in 1850.

The Pony Express was made obsolete, though, with the completion of the transcontinental telegraph on October 24, 1861, and it ceased operation two days after. (The transcontinental railroad was then completed in May 1869, only 7½ years later.)

The Pony Express and the Civil War

Because of the Pony Express, people in California received news of the beginning of the Civil War just 12 days after it began, rather than weeks later as would have been the case earlier. The Pony Express helped keep California aligned with the North in spite of many Confederate sympathizers living in the state.

In addition, partly because of the Pony Express, California’s gold was secured for funding the Union forces rather than the soldiers of the South.

The Civil War threatened the operation of the Pony Express in several ways.

For example, the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, the first railroad to cross Missouri, was completed in February 1859, making St. Joe the westernmost point in the U.S. accessible by rail. It is said to have carried the first letter to the Pony Express on April 3, 1860. During the Civil War, the first assignment of Col. Ulysses S. Grant was protecting that railroad and Pony Express mail.

Grant was re-assigned in August 1861, and the Platte Bridge Railroad Tragedy occurred shortly thereafter, on Sept. 3. The bushwhackers caused the bridge over the Platte River a few miles east of St. Joe to collapse, and the train from Hannibal, which included a mail car, plunged into the river, killing about 20 people and injuring 100.

The St. Joseph Newspaper

The St. Joseph News-Press, the main newspaper of northwest Missouri, traces its roots to the St. Joseph Gazette, which was first published in 1845 shortly after St. Joe was founded just two years earlier. The Gazette was the only newspaper to be sent west on the first ride of the Pony Express.

Earlier this month the News-Press became only the second newspaper in the country to endorse Donald Trump for President.

That is not too surprising, though, as most of its readers across rural northwest Missouri are strong Republicans and will most likely vote for Trump anyway—even though for a great many of them that would be against their own best self-interest.

Selected Resources

“The Story of the Pony Express” (1992) by Nancy Pope, accessible online here.

The Story of the Pony Express (1960), edited by Waddell F. Smith, grandson of William B. Waddell, one of the founders of the Pony Express