National Union Party (United States)
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The National Union Party was a political party in the United States from 1864 to 1868. It was an alliance between members of the Republican Party who backed Abraham Lincoln and some Northern Democrats (plus a few anti-Confederate Southerners such as Andrew Johnson) during and after the Civil War.
The party was created in the Spring of 1864 during dark days of the Civil War, at least in Union eyes. Conventional wisdom held that the incompetent Lincoln could not be re-elected. Anti-Lincoln Radical Republicans, convening in Cleveland starting on May 31, 1864, nominated John C. Frémont, the Republicans' first standard-bearer in 1856. Pro-Lincoln Republicans joined Democrats to form a new Party in convention in Baltimore the first week in June 1864 Presidential Election to accommodate War Democrats who wished to separate themselves from the Copperheads. This is the main reason why War Democrat Andrew Johnson was selected to be the Vice Presidential nominee. The Lincoln Republicans also hoped that the new party would stress the national character of the war.
News of Lincoln's nomination at the National Union Convention elicited this famous response on June 9, 1864: "I am very grateful for the renewed confidence which has been accorded to me, both by the convention and by the National [Union] League. I am not insensible at all to the personal compliment there is in this; yet I do not allow myself to believe that any but a small portion of it is to be appropriated as a personal compliment. The convention and the nation, I am assured, are alike animated by a higher view of the interests of the country for the present and the great future, and that part I am entitled to appropriate as a compliment is only that part which I may lay hold of as being the opinion of the convention and of the League, that I am not entirely unworthy to be instructed with the place I have occupied for the last three years. I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded, in this connection, of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that 'it was not best to swap horses when crossing streams.'"
The complexion of the war changed as the Election approached. Confederate Commander Robert E. Lee's last victory in battle occurred June 3, 1864, at Cold Harbor. Union General Ulysses S. Grant's aggressive tactics began to bear fruit that summer. Admiral David Farragut successfully shut down Mobile Bay as a Confederate resource in the Battle of Mobile Bay August 3-23, 1864. Confederate General John Bell Hood surrendered Atlanta, Georgia, on September 1, 1864, to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman. The occupation of the city boosted both the Northern spirit and the Lincoln campaign.
Frémont and his fellow Republicans hated their former ally, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. In return for a deal on Blair's future, Frémont reconsidered his. On September 22, 1864, Republican nominee Frémont dropped out of the race. On September 23, Lincoln asked for, and got, Blair's resignation. The National Union ticket went on to win handily on November 8th.
With the National Union victory, Abraham Lincoln became the only president to represent two political parties. Upon Lincoln's death, Andrew Johnson became the only other National Union President.
In the 1864 Congressional Elections, the National Union Party won 42 Senate seats, and 149 House of Representatives seats.
The last congressman to represent the National Union Party ended his affiliation with the party in March 1867. Upon the expiration of Andrew Johnson's term, the National Union Party came to an end. By 1868, the Republicans had felt strong enough to drop the Union Party label. Most candidates called themselves Republicans in the 1866 election as well.
