In 1869 Congress passed the Fifteenth Amendment giving black men the right to vote, and Julian persuaded himself that the fight against slavery had been won. As his memoirs noted, some of the most prominent and consistent enemies of slavery—Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, and Horace Greeley, especially—had been all but forced out of the Republican Party that they had helped to create. In his bid for re-election to Congress in 1870, Julian faced a strong conservative challenger, Judge Jeremiah M. Wilson, for the nomination. Among the eleven Republican newspapers in Indiana's Fourth District, only three backed Julian, the remaining eight supported his opponent. Julian lost in the Republican primary and withdrew from the race. Julian supported the Republicans in the fall election, but his endorsement of the winning nominee lagged until late in the campaign and he did not actively campaign for the party's candidate.