Contentious Elections and Democratization

Abstract During the election year of 1864, the circumstances of war tended to make electoral politics a battleground between the administration and an opposition party, by conflating loyalty with support for the government. Lincoln’s political strategy equated the Union-Republican Party with inclusive, “large-tent” patriotism and dressed his opponents in the clothes of narrow, illegitimate faction. National Union Party leaders insisted in 1864 that the contest was for the government’s survival. The Democrats’ Chicago platform, with its call for an armistice, provided an easy target for “patriot” opponents. The Union Party proved brilliantly successful in presenting itself as a unique cross-party vehicle of nationalism and in characterizing its opponents as a factious coalition of disunionists, peace-plotters, foreign financiers, and naive McClellanites. The erosion of democratic practice was only part of the 1864 story. The more powerful narrative is that of its remarkably robust survival and its role in energizing the Union cause.