1864 National Union National Convention in the context of "Moderate Republicans (Reconstruction era)"

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⭐ Core Definition: 1864 National Union National Convention

The 1864 National Union National Convention was the United States presidential nominating convention of the National Union Party, which met in Baltimore, Maryland on June 7 and 8, 1864. National Union was the name adopted by the main faction of the Republican Party in a coalition with many, if not most, War Democrats and Unconditional Unionists after some Republicans and War Democrats nominated John C. Frémont over Lincoln a few weeks earlier. The National Union renominated Abraham Lincoln for president and Andrew Johnson was nominated for vice president. During the Convention, the party adopted a platform calling for a victorious end in the ongoing Civil War, the eradication of slavery by constitutional amendment and the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

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👉 1864 National Union National Convention in the context of Moderate Republicans (Reconstruction era)

Moderate Republicans were a faction of American politicians within the Republican Party from the party's founding before the American Civil War in 1854 until the end of Reconstruction in the Compromise of 1877. They were known for their loyal support of President Abraham Lincoln's war policies and opposed the more militant stances advocated by the Radical Republicans. According to historian Eric Foner, congressional leaders of the faction were James G. Blaine, John A. Bingham, William P. Fessenden, Lyman Trumbull, and John Sherman. Their constituencies were primarily residents of states outside New England, where Radical Republicanism garnered insufficient support. They included "Conservative Republicans" and the moderate Liberal Republicans, later also known as "Half-Breeds".

During the 1864 United States presidential election, amidst the backdrop of the ongoing Civil War, moderate Republicans supported merging the Republican Party with the War Democrats (Democrats who supported the continuation of the Union war effort) to form the National Union Party alliance. At the Republican National Convention (which operated under the name of the "National Union National Convention" that year), they spearheaded the effort to replace Lincoln's vice president Hannibal Hamlin with Tennessee Democrat Andrew Johnson, acting out of the belief that placing a War Democrat on the presidential ticket would solidify support to ensure Lincoln's re-election.

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1864 National Union National Convention in the context of 1864 United States presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1864, near the end of the American Civil War. Incumbent President Abraham Lincoln of the National Union Party easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 212–21 in the electoral college, with 55% of the popular vote. For the election, the Republican Party and some Democrats created the National Union Party, especially to attract War Democrats.

Despite some intra-party opposition from Salmon Chase and the Radical Republicans, Lincoln won his party's nomination at the 1864 National Union National Convention. Rather than re-nominate Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, the convention selected Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, a War Democrat, as Lincoln's running mate. John C. Frémont, who had been the Republican nominee in 1856, started to run as the nominee of the new Radical Democratic Party, with War Democrat John Cochrane as Frémont's running mate; the new party criticized Lincoln for being too moderate on the issue of racial equality, but Frémont and Cochrane withdrew from the race in September and their new party dissolved. The Democrats were divided between the Copperheads, who favored immediate peace with the Confederacy, and War Democrats, who supported the war. The 1864 Democratic National Convention nominated McClellan, a War Democrat, but adopted a platform advocating peace with the Confederacy, which McClellan rejected, although his running mate George H. Pendleton wrote it. While the Confederacy seemed to have survival potential in summer 1864, it was visibly collapsing by election day in November.

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1864 National Union National Convention in the context of National Union Party (United States)

The National Union Party, commonly known as the Union Party, and sometimes as the Republican-Union coalition, was a wartime coalition of Republicans, War Democrats, and border state Unconditional Unionists that supported the Lincoln administration during the American Civil War. It held the 1864 National Union Convention that nominated Abraham Lincoln for president and Andrew Johnson for vice president in the 1864 United States presidential election. Following Lincoln's assassination, Johnson tried and failed to sustain the Union Party as a vehicle for his presidential ambitions. The coalition did not contest the 1868 elections, but the Republican Party continued to use the Union Republican label throughout the period of Reconstruction.

Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 United States presidential election, polling 180 electoral votes and 53 percent of the popular vote in the free states; opposition to Lincoln was divided, with most Northern Democrats voting for the senior U.S. senator from Illinois Stephen Douglas. Following his inauguration, Lincoln sought support from Douglas Democrats and Southern Unionists for his efforts to preserve the Union. He encouraged the formation of bipartisan Union coalitions in the loyal states that replaced the Republican Party throughout much of the Lower North. Besides allowing voters of diverse pre-war partisan allegiances to act collectively, the Union label served a valuable propaganda purpose by implying the coalition's opponents were dis-unionists.

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