page_title: Presidency of Abraham Lincoln
section_title: Election of 1864
hierarchical_section_title: Presidency of Abraham Lincoln / American Civil War / Election of 1864
caption_attribution_description: United States Republican presidential ticket, 1864. Print shows a campaign banner for 1864 Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln and running mate Andrew Johnson. A drawn curtain reveals bust portraits of the two candidates in roundels framed in oak leaves. Above the portraits is a "Temple of Liberty," within which stands a female figure holding a staff and liberty cap. Four American flags flank the temple. Perched on the temple's dome is an eagle with spread wings holding a banderole in his mouth and arrows in his talons. Rays of light ending in stars emanate from the temple. A vignette below the portraits shows a man plowing with a team of horses in front of farm buildings. The peace and prosperity to come with Lincoln's reelection, evoked by this bucolic scene, are emphasized by cornucopias on either side spilling over with fruit. 1 print on wove paper&#160;: lithograph with watercolor&#160;; image 32.2 x 22.4 cm.
context_page_description: The presidency of Abraham Lincoln began on March 4, 1861, when he was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States, and ended upon his assassination and death on April 15, 1865, 42 days into his second term. Lincoln was the first member of the recently-established Republican Party elected to the presidency. He was succeeded by Vice President Andrew Johnson. Lincoln presided over the Union victory in the American Civil War, which dominated his presidency.
  Lincoln took office following the 1860 presidential election, in which he won a plurality of the popular vote in a four-candidate field. Almost all of Lincoln's votes came from the Northern United States, as the Republicans held little appeal to voters in the Southern United States. A former Whig, Lincoln ran on a political platform opposed to the expansion of slavery in the territories. His election served as the immediate impetus for the outbreak of the Civil War. After being sworn in as president, Lincoln refused to accept any resolution that would result in Southern secession from the Union.
context_section_description: With Democratic gains in the 1862 and 1863 mid-term elections, Lincoln felt increasing pressure to finish the war before the end of his term in early 1865. Hoping to rally unionists of both parties, Lincoln urged Republican leaders to adopt a new label for the 1864 election: the National Union Party. By the end of 1863, Lincoln had won the respect of many, but his re-nomination was not assured, as no president had won a second term since Andrew Jackson in 1832. Chase emerged as the most prominent potential intra-party challenger, and Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy led a covert campaign for Chase's nomination. Much of the support for Chase came from abolitionists who were frustrated by Lincoln's unwillingness to push for the immediate end of slavery and his willingness to work with conservative Unionist leaders in the South. Pomeroy's attempts to galvanize support for Chase backfired as they generated a groundswell of support for Lincoln's re-nomination, and Chase announced in early 1864 that he was not a candidate for the presidential nomination. After Chase decided not to run, anti-slavery activists cast about for a new candidate. In May 1864, a group led by Wendell Phillips nominated John C. Frémont for president. Most abolitionist leaders and Radical Republicans, including William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Charles Sumner, decided to support Lincoln over Frémont, as they believed that Frémont's candidacy would ultimately help Democrats more than the abolitionist cause. Frémont himself eventually endorsed this view, and he withdrew from the race in favor of Lincoln in September 1864.
  Despite recent setbacks in the Western Theater of the war, the June 1864 National Union National Convention nominated Lincoln for president. Though Hamlin hoped to be re-nominated as vice president, the convention instead nominated Andrew Johnson, the military governor of Tennessee. Lincoln had refused to weigh in on his preferred running mate, and the convention chose to nominate Johnson, a Southern War Democrat, in order to boost the party's appeal to Unionists of both parties. The party platform called for the unconditional surrender of the Confederacy, and also endorsed open immigration policies, the construction of a transcontinental railroad, and the establishment of a national currency.
  By August, Republicans across the country were experiencing feelings of extreme anxiety, fearing that Lincoln would be defeated. The outlook was so grim that Thurlow Weed told the president directly that his "re-election was an impossibility." Acknowledging this, Lincoln wrote and signed a pledge that, if he should lose the election, he would nonetheless defeat the Confederacy by an all-out military effort before turning over the White House:
  This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he cannot possibly save it afterwards.
  Lincoln's re-election prospects grew brighter after the Union Navy seized Mobile Bay in late August and General Sherman captured Atlanta a few weeks later. These victories relieved Republicans' defeatist anxieties, energized the Union-Republican alliance, and helped to restore popular support for the administration's war strategy. The 1864 Democratic National Convention met at the end of August, nominating General George McClellan as their presidential candidate. The divided Democrats adopted a platform calling for peace with the Confederacy, but McClellan himself favored continuing the war. McClellan agonized over accepting the nomination, but after the Union victory in Atlanta, he accepted the nomination with a public letter.
  Confederate leaders hoped that a McClellan victory would lead to the beginning of peace negotiations, potentially leaving an independent Confederacy in place. The Republicans mobilized support against the Democratic platform, calling it "The Gr
caption: Lincoln and Johnson campaign poster
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