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. Ulysses S. Grant won the election and became the 18th president of the United States.

The 1868 United States presidential election was the 21st quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 3, 1868. In the first election of the Reconstruction Era, Republican nominee Ulysses S. Grant defeated Horatio Seymour of the Democratic Party. It was the first presidential election to take place after the conclusion of the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery. It was the first election in which African Americans could vote in the reconstructed Southern states, in accordance with the First Reconstruction Act.