As the time drew near for the decision, every possible pressure was brought by the radicals to induce senators to vote for conviction.To convict the President, thirty-six votes were necessary.There were only twelve Democrats in the Senate, but all were known to be in favor of acquittal.When the test came on the 16th of May, seven Republicans voted with the Democrats for acquittal on the eleventh article.Another vote on the 26th of May, on the first and second articles, showed that conviction was not possible.The radical legislative reaction was thus checked at its highest point and the presidency as a part of the American governmental system was no longer in danger.The seven Republicans had, however, signed their own political death warrants; they were never forgiven by the party leaders.
The presidential campaign was beginning to take shape even before the impeachment trial began.Both the Democrats and the reorganized Republicans were turning with longing toward General Grant as a candidate.Though he had always been a Democrat, Nevertheless, when Johnson actually called him a liar and a promise breaker, Grant went over to the radicals and was nominated for President on May 20, 1868, by the National Union Republican party.Schuyler Colfax was the candidate for Vice President.The Democrats, who could have won with Grant and who under good leadership still had a bare chance to win, nominated Horatio Seymour of New York and Francis P.Blair of Missouri.The former had served as war governor of New York, while the latter was considered an extreme Democrat who believed that the radical reconstruction of the South should be stopped, the troops withdrawn, and the people left to form their own governments.The Democratic platform pronounced itself opposed to the reconstruction policy, but Blair's opposition was too extreme for the North.
Seymour, more moderate and a skillful campaigner, made headway in the rehabilitation of the Democratic party.The Republican party declared for radical reconstruction and Negro suffrage in the South but held that each Northern State should be allowed to settle the suffrage for itself.It was not a courageous platform, but Grant was popular and carried his party through to success.
The returns showed that in the election Grant had carried twenty-six States with 214 electoral votes, while Seymour had carried only eight States with 80votes.But an examination of the popular vote, which was 3,000,000 for Grant and 2,700,000 for Seymour, gave the radicals cause for alarm, for it showed that the Democrats had more white votes than the Republicans, whose total included nearly 700,000 blacks.To insure the continuance of the radicals in power, the Fifteenth Amendment was framed and sent out to the States on February 26, 1869.This amendment appeared not only to make safe the Negro majorities in the South but also gave the ballot to the Negroes in a score of Northern States and thus assured, for a time at least, 900,000 Negro voters for the Republican party.
