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with the exception of Rufus Choate's tribute
to Webster in 1852, are the most splendid
examples of our convention oratory. In due
course, the turn of Conkling came to nom-
inate Grant. He mounted a table on the
reporter's platform, and began with a slight
variation of Miles O'Reilly's lines:

"And when asked what State he hails from, nomination seemed no
Our sole reply shall be,
He hails from Appomattox
And its famous apple tree."

He declared that with Grant the Republican party could "grandly win." Pointing out in well-chosen words Grant's title to greatness, he was never effusive, tawdry, or grandiloquent. He seized the salient points that suggested to all grateful recollections. Certainly he was a strong candidate who was victor in war, magnanimous at Lee's surrender, a lover of peace, as shown by the Geneva arbitration, a believer in sound money as exemplified by the veto of the inflation bill. The only objection to Grant, Conkling said, was the "third term" and to this objection he applied his scathing ridicule. He was heard all over the hall, and the long applause that followed was not entirely that of a claque; part of it was in genuine approval of an eloquent speech. Benjamin Harrison, a delegate from Indiana, a cold critic of oratory, who later developed into an excellent public speaker, unconsciously applauded as vigorously as Grant's most sympathetic friends, although he himself was opposed to the general's nomination. Conkling's was an effective speech in holding together his solid phalanx, but it failed in conciliation. As the necessary votes to nominate Grant must come largely from the supporters of Blaine and Sherman, it was not a happy stroke to cast a slur on each of those candidates. After Grant's nomination had been seconded in a five-minute speech, Garfield rose to present the name of Sherman. To follow Conkling's oration was a difficult rôle, and his subject was far less inspiring, yet he made a great speech, presenting strong reasons for the nomination of Sherman and receiving an enthusiastic acclaim from the audience in the Convention hall. Afterward it was often sneeringly suggested that Garfield spoke for himself rather than for Sherman, but this sneer was prompted by the outcome of the Convention.

It was nearly midnight of Saturday when the Convention adjourned. No ballot was taken and the main business went over to Monday. During the interval of one whole day, in which it had been hoped that some combination would be made, nothing apparently was determined, and, when the Convention met on Monday, June 7, the more imminent than when the delegates had come together during the preceding week. On the first ballot Grant received 304; Blaine 284; Sherman 93; George F. Edmunds 34; E. B. Washburne 30; William Windom 10; necessary to a choice, 378. It was clear that the adherents of Blaine and Sherman could control the nomination by uniting on one or the other, but such a combination was never made. Sherman expected the nomination by drawing from the backers of both Grant and Blaine, in the event that the sharp contest should result in the nomination of neither. He was friendly to both candidates and to their chief supporters, but he suffered by not having a unanimous delegation from his own State, receiving only 34 of Ohio's votes while Blaine got 9 and Edmunds 1. In Ohio two delegates were chosen from each Congressional district by a district convention and four from the State at large by the State Convention, which had this year instructed these to vote for Sherman and requested the district delegates to do likewise. In certain parts of the State, however, there was a strong feeling for Blaine, and Sherman, being aware of this, desired that Garfield's district should send him as a delegate. [Garfield was still a Representative in the lower House of Congress, although he had been chosen Senator for six years, from March 4, 1881.] Sherman had practically the naming of the delegates at large and Garfield, assuring him of his earnest support, told him that he was eager to go to the Convention as one of the four; and so it was arranged. Garfield's influence in his own district was very powerful, yet this district sent two delegates who voted for Blaine. In view of all the facts, it is pretty difficult to avoid the alternative mentioned in a private letter of Sherman's of April 8: "If this district [Garfield's] should be against my nomination, it would be attributed to either want of influence on his [Garfield's] part, or, what is worse, a want of sincerity in my support."

A survey of the whole proceedings of the Convention reveals Garfield's work on behalf of his candidate as a cold performance of duty utterly lacking enthusiasm; and this is entirely comprehensible when it is remembered that the personal and political friendship between him and Blaine was so close that Blaine's nomination would undoubtedly have given him great pleasure. On the twenty-ninth ballot, nineteen delegates from Massachusetts dropped Edmunds and voted for Sherman, making his vote 116. This proved that he was satisfactory to the Independent Republicans; but on the next ballot he received only 120, and afterward his vote fell off, rendering it apparent that he could not attract a sufficient number of the supporters of Blaine to secure the nomination. This meant that he was out of the race. The highest number that Blaine received was 285. He could not get the votes of the Independent Republicans who actually preferred Grant to him, nor could he attract the Sherman strength. Politically the supporters of Blaine and Grant were sympathetic, both being, in the main, Stalwarts, but the bitter feeling between Conkling and Blaine made any diversion to him from the Grant following impossible. Grant's highest vote was 313, and this on the ballot next to the last, when his full strength was called out to prevent the nomination of Garfield. His average vote was about 306, the exact number that he received on the last ballot, and these 306 have gone down into history as the solid Grant phalanx, steady in their support, holding firm to him to the last. So faithful and consistent a following was exceedingly likely at any time to draw from the other candidates and bring about a stampede to Grant as the strongest; and it was then thought, and present study confirms the contemporaneous impression, that a union of the anti-Grant forces was possible on no other man than Garfield.

For some weeks before the Convention Garfield had been talked of, as the possible nominee and, when the delegates and hangers-on came to Chicago, the gossip of the crowd pointed in his direction. On the third day of the Convention, after having espoused the cause of the three recalcitrant delegates from West Virginia and made his famous reply to Conkling, he must have felt that his hold on the delegates was power

ful and that if neither Grant, Blaine, nor Sherman could secure the prize, he might win it for himself. His speech nominating Sherman was one of the great efforts of his life and furthered his own cause far better than that of the man for whom he spoke. On the Sunday night, however, intervening between his speech and the balloting, he refused, according to the New York Tribune, to entertain the idea of being a candidate. On Monday (June 7th) twenty-eight ballots were taken and the twenty-ninth, the first ballot of the Tuesday, gave no indication that the dead-lock would be broken, nor was there any notable change until the thirty-fourth. On the second ballot Garfield had received one vote from Pennsylvania which, with five exceptions, was continued to the thirty-fourth. On different occasions he got another vote, twice from Alabama, three times from Maryland. On a number of ballots he received two from Pennsylvania, but on no ballot a total of more than two until the thirtyfourth, when Wisconsin gave him sixteen. In this crucial moment of his life Garfield said: "Mr. President, I rise to a question of order. . . . I challenge the correctness of the announcement. The announcement contains votes for me. man has a right, without the consent of the person voted for, to announce that person's name, and vote for him, in this Convention. Such consent I have not given." This is the official account which Senator Hoar, who, be it remembered, was the presiding officer, corrects slightly in his Autobiography by saying that after the word "given" there should be a dash instead of a period, for he interrupted Garfield in the middle of a sentence by declining to entertain his question of order and commanding him to resume his seat. "I was terribly afraid," Hoar further related, "that he would say something that would make his nomination impossible, or his acceptance impossible, if it were made." Garfield afterward said to the reporter of a Cleveland newspaper: "If Senator Hoar had permitted, I would have forbidden anybody to vote for me. But he took me off my feet before I had said what I intended." These statements must be given their due weight; yet nobody can doubt that Garfield, with his magnificent presence and stentorian voice, could have commanded

No

the attention of the Convention and, by de- administration. The appointment of Robclining emphatically to be a candidate under any circumstances, have turned the tide which was setting in his favor. But his characteristic vacillation prevented him from taking the most glorious action of his life, that of absolutely refusing consent to his nomination. But apparently the thought of his trust was overpowered by the conviction that the prize was his without the usual hard preliminary work.

On the thirty-fifth ballot Garfield received 50; on the thirty-sixth and last, 399; to Blaine 42, Sherman 3 and Grant 306. The Blaine and Sherman following, together with the Independent Republicans, nominated Garfield. Both Blaine and Sherman sent telegrams asking their delegates to vote for him, and on the last ballot Garfield had the solid vote of Maine, and all but one from Ohio (that one being, of course, his own).

In his "Recollections" John Sherman has magnanimously absolved Garfield from any breach of trust; after the President's death he once said to me, "Garfield had a great head and a great heart."

Garfield's was probably, with the exception of Sherman's, the strongest nomination which could have been made. In November he was elected, carrying the State of New York, which was absolutely necessary for his success, by over 20,000 plurality. For the first time the "solid South" gave their electoral votes to the Democratic candidate, who this year was General Hancock.

Garfield chose Blaine, his closest friend and most trusted political adviser, for his Secretary of State, and this choice involved him in a quarrel at the outset of his administration. Blaine was the more masterful man of the two, and it was undoubtedly due to him that William H. Robertson was appointed Collector of the Port of New York. The actual incumbent, an appointment of Hayes, was a good officer and there was no administrative reason for the change. But the Collector's position was very important, as he might control the political machine of New York City. Before the presidency of Hayes, this machine had been controlled by Conkling, and Hayes's removal of Chester A. Arthur, Conkling's henchman, was for the purpose of better

ertson could be looked at in no other way than an attempt to build up an anti-Conkling machine in a Conkling stronghold. Robertson had been at the head of the Blaine supporters in the New York delegation of 1880, and had joined in the stampede to Garfield. Conkling and his brother Senator, Thomas C. Platt, regarded his appointment as a personal insult and resigned their positions as Senators; they then appealed to their legislature to return them to the Senate as their vindication. This plan met with strenuous opposition, and the New York legislature was engaged in a bitter Senatorial contest, in which Conkling was being assisted by the Vice-President, Chester A. Arthur, when Garfield, after only four months of office, was shot at the railroad station in Washington. On September 19 he was dead, but he left his party in New York State rent asunder. Conkling and Platt had been defeated for re-election to the Senate, but the bitter feeling aroused by the appointment of Robertson remained and two factions called Stalwarts and Half-Breeds contended for mastery. For the presidential nomination of 1884, the Stalwarts in the main supported Arthur and the Half-Breeds Blaine. Though Arthur had been a machine politician of the most advanced type, he had on his succession to the presidency shaken himself free from his old associations and, pursuing a manly course, had gained the confidence of the country. He desired the nomination, and while an analysis of his support in the Convention shows that his office-holders had been active in sending delegates favorable to him, it does not appear that he sacrificed the dignity of his office by making any efforts on his own behalf.

While the Convention of 1880 is one of the most interesting in our history, that of 1884 is one of the least interesting. The eager strife which characterized the action before and during the earlier Convention is absent. At the same time, there was no well-defined issue between the parties and there were no differences of principle within the Republican party itself. The dominant aim seemed to be the selection of a man strong enough to defeat the Democratic candidate, who would, undoubtedly, be Grover Cleveland. In 1882 Cleveland

had been elected Governor of New York not nominated on one of the early ballots,
by 192,854 majority over the Republican
candidate; he had made an admirable
Governor, stood high in his own party, out-
side of Tammany Hall, and had won the
approval of independent thinkers, among
both Republicans and Democrats.

the movement toward General Sherman
would be irresistible, he advised his brother
to accept the nomination if it came "un-
sought and with cordial unanimity." But
neither Blaine's advice nor his brother's'
could move the general. His final word,
sent to John B. Henderson, who became
permanent chairman of the Convention
was: Prevent, if you can, the mention of
my name; should a break occur after the
first ballot and "my name be presented as
a compromise," decline for me; lastly, "if
in spite of such declination I should be
nominated," decline with emphasis. For
"I would not for a million dollars subject
myself and family to the ordeal of a political
canvass, and afterward to a four years' ser-
vice in the White House."

In the end the Convention nominated Blaine, but the result came not of self-seeking and manipulation on his own part; on the contrary, the nomination sought him. He was the choice of the majority of the Convention and undoubtedly of the majority of his party. "I neither desire nor expect the nomination," he said. "But I don't intend that man in the White House shall have it." [February 22.] He was entirely sincere when, in writing to one of his most active supporters, he forbade the use of money, saying that the nomination While the absence of Senators Hale and must be the "unbiassed, unbought judg- Frye [Blaine leaders in 1880] and Conkling ment of the people." [May 8.] The real rea- was conspicuous, there were many able son of Blaine's indifference was that he men among the delegates. Massachusetts feared that he could not carry New York, sent Senator Hoar, William W. Crapo, and as the Democrats would have the solid John D. Long, and Henry Cabot Lodge, South, the electoral vote of that State as delegates at large, and, as district delewas necessary to Republican success. He gate, Edward L. Pierce: 25 of her 28 votes, shrank from the canvass, and like many including these five, were given to Edother Republicans cast about for a candi- munds. date who might win. His eye lighted on General Sherman, to whom he imparted his views in a private letter, written on May 25. But General Sherman would not listen to the suggestion. "I would account myself a fool" he wrote, "a madman, an ass, to embark anew, at sixty-five years of age, in a career that may become at any moment tempest-tossed by perfidy, the defalcation, the dishonesty or neglect of any single one of a hundred thousand subordinates utterly unknown to the President."

John Sherman, now Senator, had the support of a part of the Ohio delegation, but he also had doubts of Republican success. In two confidential letters to his brother, the general, he showed plainly his position: "A nomination is far from being equivalent to an election. The chances are for the Democrats but for their proverbial blundering." [January 29.] "I would gladly take it [the nomination] as an honorable closing of thirty years of political life, but I will neither ask for it, scheme for it, nor have I the faintest hope of getting it." [March 7.] Later [May 4], when it seemed to the Senator that, if Blaine were

From New York came Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew D. White, as delegates at large, and, as district delegate, George William Curtis, who was made chairman of the delegation. These three supported Edmunds, while Thomas C. Platt, a district delegate, the former lieutenant of Conkling, had separated from the Stalwarts and was strongly in favor of Blaine. Three of the delegates at large from Ohio were Foraker, William McKinley, and Mark Hanna, this being the first appearance of Hanna on the stage of national politics. The warm friendship which existed between him and McKinley until McKinley's death had already begun, although McKinley desired the nomination of Blaine, while Hanna was an earnest and faithful worker for John Sherman. The following of Blaine must not be regarded as entirely of the Thomas C. Platt stripe; some of the best men of the party, like McKinley and William Walter Phelps, were advocates of his nomination.

In the Convention harmony prevailed. The reports of the Committees on Credentials and on Resolutions were unanimously adopted; the majority report of the Com

mittee on Rules, without a call of the roll. Nevertheless, a contention occurred on the first day when Lodge, Curtis, and Roosevelt resisted the choice of the National Committee for temporary chairman of Powell Clayton, an eleventh-hour supporter of Blaine, and carried, by a majority of forty, the election of John R. Lynch, a colored man, who was for Arthur. All the delegates knew Roosevelt from his untiring personal canvass for Edmunds and when, to use the words of the reporter, this "active, nervous, light-haired, gray-eyed man" mounted a chair to urge the election of Lynch, "he was greeted with a burst of rousing applause." The division in the main was between the Blaine and Logan delegates [Logan was a candidate, receiving on the first ballot sixty-three and a half votes] on the one side, and the Arthur, Edmunds, and Sherman forces on the other, but it failed to reveal the entire Blaine strength, as a number of his supporters had a personal preference for Lynch over Clayton. On the second day, owing to a premonition of the "mugwump bolt" against Blaine, a resolution was offered that every member of the Convention was bound in honor to support its nominee. This was opposed by Edward L. Pierce, and an animated discussion followed, ending with an impassioned speech by George William Curtis against the resolution, as a result of which it was withdrawn. Although it is now evident that it was a Blaine Convention, it was not clear at the time to those opposing his nominationat any rate not until the fourth day, when the balloting began. The objection to Blaine was presented under different aspects. A number of the delegates believed that he had prostituted his high office of Speaker of the House in an effort for pecuniary gain. Others, denying that the charge had been proved, felt that the suspicion was so strong as to render him a vulnerable candidate. And all these were at one in the conviction that he could not carry New York. In the balloting Arthur was the next strongest candidate, but on him a union of the opposition to Blaine was impossible; indeed, it was thought that, owing to party dissensions, he could not carry New York, his own State. Those opposed to both Blaine and Arthur endeavored to

bring the other jarring elements together. Roosevelt and Mark Hanna wrought with a common aim in the effort to get the Edmunds delegates to divert their strength to John Sherman, hoping that other accessions might follow; but this combination they failed to effect. Then efforts were made in another direction. Although it was known in the Convention that General Sherman had written a letter to Blaine, declining to be a candidate, and had sent a telegram to Henderson of the same tenor, a belief was held in some quarters that if he were nominated he would not decline. Senator Hoar and George William Curtis, sharing this belief, endeavored to win an important number of delegates from their respective States to their way of thinking. They thought they had succeeded and were intending at the proper time to announce these votes for General Sherman, when it was thought delegates from one or two other States would follow; but, before the announcement could be made, each was met with this objection from their associate delegates-"Our people do not want a Father Confessor in the White House," the reference being to the religion of General Sherman's wife. Thus were they forced to abandon their attempt.

On Friday, June 6th, the fourth day of the Convention, the balloting began. On the first ballot, when 411 were necessary to a choice, Blaine had 3342; Arthur 278; Edmunds 93; Logan 632; John Sherman 30; Hawley 13; Robert Lincoln 4; General Sherman 2.

Blaine gained steadily on the second and third ballots; on the fourth nearly all of the Logan delegates, by Logan's direction, voted for him and there were other changes sufficient to give him 541 votes and the nomination. The majority of the Convention, representing the majority of the party, regarded the allegation of Blaine's venality as a calumny. Logan was nominated for Vice-President.

The revolt in his own party against Blaine has given to this presidential canvass the name of "The Mugwump Campaign." His successful antagonist was Grover Cleveland. New York was the decisive State, and Cleveland received her electoral vote by a plurality of 1,149 in a total vote of 1,167,169.

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