1868 Republican National Convention

The 1868 Republican National Convention was held in Crosby's Opera House, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, May 20-21, 1868.

Ulysses S. Grant had emerged as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination after being the Union commander in the Civil War. He was nominated 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.

The Platform

The 1868 Republican platform supported black suffrage in the South but wanted the northern states to decide for them selves if to embrace black suffrage, opposed to using greenbacks to redeem U.S bonds, encoragement of immigration, endorsement for full rights for naturalized citiziens and favored Radical Reconstruction in opposition to President Andrew Johnson's lenient reconstruction.

The Candidates for the Vice-Presidential Nomination

• Benjamin F. Wade (Ohio)
• John A. J Cresswell (Maryland)
• Andrew G. Curtin (Pennsylvania)
• Reuben E. Fenton (New York)
• Hannibal Hamlin (Maine)
• James Harlan (Iowa)
• William D. Kelley (Pennsylvania)
• Samuel C. Pomeroy (Kansas)
• James Speed (Kentucky)
• Henry Wilson (Massachusetts)