 The post-war conventions culminated with the 1869 National Convention of Colored Men in Washington, D.C.The convention delegates wrote a letter congratulating General Ulysses S. Grant for being elected President of the United States, to which Grant responded, "I thank the Convention, of which you are the representative, for the confidence they have expressed, and I hope sincerely that the colored people of the Nation may receive every protection which the laws give to them.They shall have my efforts to secure such protection."