Grant won the popular vote by 300,000 votes out of 5,716,082 votes cast, receiving an Electoral College landslide of 214 votes to Seymour's 80.[319] Seymour received a majority of white voters, but Grant was aided by 500,000 votes cast by blacks,[313] winning him 52.7 percent of the popular vote.[320] He lost Louisiana and Georgia, primarily due to Ku Klux Klan violence against African-American voters.[321] At the age of 46, Grant was the youngest president yet elected, and the first president after the nation had outlawed slavery.[322]

Presidency (1869–1877)
Main article: Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant
Photo by Mathew Brady, 1870Official White House portrait of President Grant by Henry Ulke, 1875
On March 4, 1869, Grant was sworn in as the eighteenth President of the United States by Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase. In his inaugural address, Grant urged the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, while large numbers of African Americans attended his inauguration.[323] He also urged that bonds issued during the Civil War should be paid in gold, called for "proper treatment" of Native Americans and encouraged their "civilization and ultimate citizenship".[324]
Grant's cabinet appointments sparked both criticism and approval.