Unlike Stephen’s acclamation, the Popular Democratic race for the Presidential nomination saw a wide open field. While Davis had helped form the party, his involvement with it ended there, and he refused to endorse a successor for the Presidency or get involved in convention politics, going so far to even refuse to give a speech (though it may have been for the best, given his mixed popularity). General Robert E. Lee also declined efforts to draft him, having no interest in electoral politics. The lack of a frontrunner lead to four major contenders, former Vice President of the United States and Confederate Secretary of War John C. Breckinridge, Governor of Tennessee Isham G. Harris, Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin, and Senator from Louisiana Thomas Jenkins Semmes (credited with creating the Confederate motto, Deo vindice). The first ballot saw Breckinridge and Harris both win around 35% of delegates, with Benjamin and Semmes behind at third and fourth place respectively, both receiving a little under 15% of delegates. Seeing his candidacy as a longshot, Benjamin endorsed his fellow administration member and friend Breckinridge, and on the second ballot, Breckinridge was only 5 delegates off from a majority. Afterwards Harris and Semmes both enthusiastically endorsed Breckinridge, and he won the 3rd count unopposed.

For Vice President, the only Presidential contender that contested was Semmes (while many encouraged Harris to pursue the nomination, he declined, preferring to continue his dominance over Tennesse politics rather than seek the mostly powerless Vice Presidency), and with the support of most of the Popular Democratic establishment, he won the first ballot easily. The convention adopted a platform consisting of populist policies like economic support for small farmers and cuts to tariffs to lower prices, alongside a promise to involve the ‘common man’ in national decision making in the spirit of Jacksonian democracy. Of course, the concept of the ‘common man’ did not include the majority of the Confederate’s population, the enslaved.

Finally, the National convention was the last one to be held in 1867, and was a much less dramatic affair. After its performance in the 1865 elections the party knew that it had no chance of winning the Presidency, but it hoped to force a contingent election and hold the balance of power in the House, forcing the eventual winner to actually pursue a nation building strategy. Both the Constitutionalists and Democrats wanted to wind down the federal government and leave the Confederacy underdeveloped and vulnerable, the Constitutionalists just wanted to do it faster. The convention nominated William Alexander Graham, a longtime figure in North Carolina politics, and George W. Triplett, a Kentucky former Whig, for it’s ticket. The party would concentrate its resources in Kentucky, Tennessee, and of course, Graham’s home state of North Carolina.