Talk:United States presidential election, 1868

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[edit] Grant's margin of victory.

I am reverting the changes of anonymous User:70.58.55.96 as to the end of the introductory paragraph:

  • 6 points is not "close".
  • I am quite willing to believe that Seymour did in fact beat Grant among white voters. However:
    • I'd like to see a reference for this.
    • It does not follow from the mere fact that the election was close, unless you postulate that there were in excess of 300 000 non-white voters and that they voted 99+% for Grant (or that there is an even larger number of non-white voters and a slightly smaller tilt toward Grant among them). Neither fact is in evidence.

— DLJessup 01:20, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Read the article

A statement in the article claims that Virginia, Texas, and Mississippi did not participate in the 1868 election due to Reconstruction. Negroes played no role in the election of 1968. Ignorant slaves did not vote Grant into office.

A fabrication in the article hints that ignorant slaves tipped the balance away from Seymour to Grant. That is an absurdity. TooPotato 15:10, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually, how the article reads is:

With freed blacks voting in much of the South (with the help of Union soldiers), and with massive popularity in the North as the man who won the Civil War, Grant won a solid victory.

In other words, the freed blacks and war hero status were not responsible just for victory, but for the size of that victory. (This was a bit stronger originally, when Grant "won in a landslide", but some user thought that using the word "landslide" for Grant's victory overstated things and reduced it to merely a "solid victory".)
Now, if you look at the electoral map, there are 38 electoral votes in former Confederate states that go to Grant. (I am discounting Florida, which had its electoral votes chosen by the state legislature.) It is highly unlikely that Grant would have been able to win those votes without the participation of freedmen. Would Grant have still won? Probably, although we've just cut his margin of victory in the Electoral College in half. Moreover, perhaps a Horatio Seymour who didn't have to devote resources to winning former Confederate states could have campaigned more effectively in the North.
— DLJessup (talk) 23:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Here is the rub. Landowners had been voters in the colonial era and in the United States. Poor white men could not vote. No poor person qualified. In order to qualify, a person needed to own (perhaps) at least 50 acres of land. The ex-slaves did not suddenly obtain enough wealth to become voters. The fifteenth Constitutional Amendment passed through Congress on February 27, 1869. It was ratified om March 30, 1870. It said that race could not be used to disqualify a person from voting.

I am not an expert on this subject, but President Lincoln had said that women who were rich enough should be permitted to vote. I am uncertain of when the assets test was removed, allowing poor people to vote. TooPotato 20:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the assets test was removed in the 1820s and 1830s, because that was one of the planks of Jacksonian Democracy. This wouldn't apply to South Carolina (the lone holdout in not allowing popular election of presidential electors), but I do know that South Carolina was forced to give up appointment of presidential electors by the state legislature during Reconstruction, so it wouldn't have been out of the question for SC to have also been

forced to give up its assets test.

— DLJessup (talk) 21:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

There is more to it than meets the eye. First of all is that each State enacts its own set of rules which determines who may vote in that State. Since there are 50 States, there are 50 sets of rules.

New World Encyclopedia (published in 1926) contains this paragraph: "The character of the qualifications required of voters in political elections varies somewhat in the different States. However, there are certain general requirements in all States, which may be summarized as follows: (1) Citizenship; (2) residence for a certain time in the State, county, and election district; (3) that the voter shall have attained the majority (21 years); (4) that the voter shall be of sound mind; (5) that he shall not be a convicted felon under sentence. Registration is also required in many States. Some of the States have established either property or educational qualifications. This has been done in most of the southern States in order to exclude the negro vote. (See SUFFRAGE, Grandfather Clause.) Several States permit women to vote. See ELECTORAL REFORM; VOTE."

Property requirements were still a tool in the twentieth century. The Federal Government does not call all of the shots when it comes to voters. There is no United States voter. TooPotato 02:14, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I read the information in New International Encyclopedia. New World Encyclopedia is a typing error. TooPotato 02:24, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The vast majority of the property requirements that your New International Encyclopedia references were created post-Reconstruction in the age of Jim Crow, which was a decade away. In 1868, federal troops still occupied much of the South, and the Radical Republicans were still in charge of the Congress. Many of the Southern states had been forced to adopt new constitutions before being readmitted into the Union, and these constitutions removed as many barriers to black voting as possible. Indeed, many Southern states would have looser voting requirements in 1840 than in 1890 precisely because in 1840 they didn't need strong voting requirements to block black voting.

I am somewhat curious about your encyclopedia. It states that "Several States permit women to vote." Allegedly, this encyclopedia is from 1926, yet the 19th Amendment was passed in 1919, so theoretically all women should have had the vote for seven years when the encyclopedia was published....

— DLJessup (talk) 06:02, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment. North Carolina passed a constitutional amendment in 1857 that guaranteed universal [white] male suffrage, which thus ended the landowning criterion. Also in North Carolina in 1868, while it is true that newly freed blacks voted overwhelmingly for Grant, he would have carried the state even without their vote. Chronicler3 21:42, 14 February 2006 (UTC) Chronicler3


[edit] Electoral picture peculiarity

Why is the graphic depiction of electoral votes skewed? Rarely nowadays does one see democratic votes colored red and and republican votes blue. --maru (talk) Contribs 20:51, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

This post has been copied to Wikipedia talk:Style for U.S. presidential election, yyyy#Electoral picture peculiarity. Please direct your responses there.
— DLJessup (talk) 21:36, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Georgia?

Georgia was the last state to be re-admitted to the union july 15, 1870. why did it take part in this election then? --Astrokey44 12:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)