In 1868, the Democrats nominated former New York Governor Horatio Seymour for President and Francis Preston Blair Jr. (a Representative from Missouri) for Vice President. The Seymour-Blair ticket ran on a platform which supported national reconciliation and states' rights, opposed Reconstruction, and opposed both Black equality and Black suffrage. Meanwhile, the Republican presidential ticket led by General Ulysses S. Grant benefited from Grant's status as a war hero (for winning the American Civil War) and ran on a pro-Reconstruction (and pro-Fourteenth Amendment) platform. Ultimately, the Seymour-Blair ticket ended up losing to the Republican ticket of General Ulysses S. Grant and House Speaker Schuyler Colfax in the 1868 U.S. presidential election.