Republicans Appeal to War Hatred in 1868
“While the financial issue [concerning wartime Greenbacks] was at its height previous to the 1868 State election in Maine, the New York Tribune of 10 September 1868 gave this warning:
“We can lose by allowing Republicans to believe this campaign is merely or mainly a question of finance, of dollars and cents, and that the taxpayers will be enriched by repudiation [of debts]. It is the cohorts of the Rebellion, forming again for the capture, not merely for the seat of the Government, but of the Government itself.”
The following paragraph was printed in the New York Tribune of 9 October 1868, reprinted from the New York World. It showed a Democratic newspaper’s view of the Republicans using the War for campaign purposes:
“The Republicans are making the late war the hinge of the presidential campaign, invoking all the bitter animosities and sectional hatred prevailing when we were conscripting soldiers to fight the South. To accuse the Democratic party of slackness in the war seems their best electioneering weapon. To denounce the Southern people as Rebels is thought the best justification of the Republican party, and the subjugation and humiliation of the South is as much their aim now as it was six years ago.
It is not a policy of peace, but of passion, revenge and domination. The symbol of the canvass on the Republican side is the sword. Their leader is a man who knows no trade except war, selected because the old feeling of hostility would more naturally rally around him than a civilian statesman.”
Reference after reference could be made concerning the Republican appeal to the war hatred of the masses of the North.”
(Political Campaign and Election of General Grant in 1868. George A. Olson. Thesis excerpt, pp. 66-67. University of Kansas, 1928)