The election of 1864 was the twentieth presidential election in the United States. The election was held toward the end of the Civil War, and Incumbent President Abraham Lincoln was reelected, defeating Democratic nominee George B. McClellan and Radical Republican John C. Fremont in a landslide victory.
During Lincoln’s first term as president, he had faced the Civil War and the secession of slave states with the formation of the Confederacy. Lincoln fought to keep the Union together while putting an end to slavery. Though Lincoln had won the 1860 election as the Republican Party candidate, the party went through changes during his first term, and ended their support for Lincoln and his administration. The Radical Republicans believed Lincoln was not willing to be harsh enough on ex-Confederate states at the end of the Civil War. They nominated John C. Fremont to lead the party as presidential candidate, with John Cochrane as his running mate.
The Democratic Party was also divided on the issue of the war. Those who supported the war were known as War Democrats, and those who opposed it were Peace Democrats. Rather than severing into two parties, the Democrats sought a unifying figure to lead the party. General George B. McClellan earned the Democratic Party nomination, though he supported the war. To balance McClellan’s pro-war views, the party nominated George Pendleton who was against the war.
Lincoln’s supporters from the Republican Party and some War Democrats united to form the National Union Party, which backed Lincoln and campaigned for his reelection. Lincoln chose Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee War Democrat, to run as his vice president. Since Johnson was from the South, unlike Lincoln’s first vice president, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, the Union Party broadened their base.
As Election Day drew closer and the Civil War progressed, Fremont dropped out of the race to assure that he did not divide the Republican votes and allow the Democratic Party to win. Fremont strongly opposed the Democratic Party’s anti-war policies, enough that he was willing to step down and endorse Lincoln instead.
The only votes counted during the 1864 election were those of the northern, or Union states, which had not attempted to secede, and new states: Nevada, West Virginia, and Kansas. Elections were still held in parts of Louisiana and Tennessee, but those ballots were not counted toward the total.
Lincoln won the election with an overwhelming 212 electoral votes to McClellan’s 21 from his home state New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky. Soldiers on the battlefields were allowed to vote, and over 70 percent of them cast their votes for Lincoln.
Lincoln resumed office for only a few months before he was shot by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. He died in the hospital the following day, and became the first President of the United States ever to be assassinated. Johnson took his seat and became the seventeenth President of the United States.
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