Democratic convention 1868
Main article: 1868 Democratic National Convention The Klan's activity infiltrated the Democratic Party's campaign for the presidential election of 1868. Prominent ex-Confederates, including Forrest, the Grand Wizard of the Klan, and South Carolina's Wade Hampton, attended as delegates at the 1868 Democratic Convention, held at Tammany Hall headquarters at 141 East 14th Street in New York City.[159] Forrest rode to the convention on a train that stopped in a small Northern town along the way, where he faced a protester who wanted to fight the "damned butcher" of Fort Pillow.[160] Former Governor of New York Horatio Seymour was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidate, while Forrest's friend, Frank Blair, Jr. was nominated as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Seymour's running mate. [161] The Seymour-Blair Democratic ticket's campaign slogan was: "Our Ticket, Our Motto, This Is a White Man's Country; Let White Men Rule." [161] The Democratic Party platform denounced the Reconstruction Acts as unconstitutional, void, and revolutionary.[162] The party advocated termination of the Freedman's Bureau and any government policy designed to aid blacks in the South. [162] These developments worked to the advantage of the Republicans, who focused on the Democratic Party's alleged disloyalty during and after the Civil War.[162]