I always suspected....

The error: Abraham Lincoln was not a Republican when he won the 1864 election.



By changing the name of his party to “National Union Party”, Lincoln was able to court Copperhead (War Democrat) voters who would never vote Republican. More than just a name change, he selected the only southern Democrat senator not to resign his seat , Andrew Johnson, to run as vice-president. Despite a convention to raise support for mid-term elections, the Republicans in the party joined the ranks of the radicals. By March of 1867, Johnson was the only Unionist in office that had not defected and it became a splinter group of the Democratic Party although ironically the Republicans kept the name of National Union Republicans for a while and consider it part of their lineage.