[311][312] The Democrats, having abandoned Johnson, nominated former governor Horatio Seymour of New York for president and Francis P. Blair of Missouri for vice president.[313] The Democrats opposed suffrage for African Americans and advocated the immediate restoration of former Confederate states to the Union and amnesty from "all past political offenses".[314]
Grant played no overt role during the campaign and instead was joined by Sherman and Sheridan in a tour of the West that summer.[315] However, the Republicans adopted his words "Let us have peace" as their campaign slogan.[316] Grant's 1862 General Order No. 11 became an issue during the presidential campaign; he sought to distance himself from the order, saying "I have no prejudice against sect or race, but want each individual to be judged by his own merit."[317] The Democrats and their Klan supporters focused mainly on ending Reconstruction, intimidating blacks and Republicans, and returning control of the South to the white Democrats and the planter class, alienating War Democrats in the North.[318] An example was the murder of Republican Congressman James M. Hinds in Arkansas by a Klansman in October 1868, as Hinds campaigned for Grant. 