1868 Republican National Convention

The 1868 Republican National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held in Crosby's Opera House, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, on May 20 to May 21, 1868.

General Ulysses S. Grant had emerged as the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination after being the Union commander in the Civil War. He was nominated for President unopposed on the first ballot. To balance Grant, a former Democrat and a hard drinker, the convention chose House Speaker Schuyler Colfax, a former Whig and temperance man, for Vice President. In Grant's acceptance telegram he said "Let us have peace", which captured the imagination of the American people.