Part 33 (1/2)
Howe, in which Senator Sawyer concurred. They had intended to make General Creswell the President of the convention.
But finding it impossible to carry their plans into effect, in order to prevent the severe measure of deposing the Chairman of the committee, they consented that the a.s.surances demanded should be given. There was then a negotiation between the leaders on the side of Grant and of Blaine for an agreement upon a presiding officer. It was well known that I was not in favor of the nomination of either. Senator Hamlin, formerly Vice-President and then a Senator, proposed my name to Mr.
Conkling as a person likely to be impartial between the two princ.i.p.al candidates. Mr. Conkling replied that such a suggestion was an insult. Hamlin said: ”I guess I can stand the insult.”
But on consultation of the Grant men and the Blaine men it was agreed that I should be selected, which was done accordingly.
I was nominated orally from the floor when Mr. Cameron called the convention to order, and chosen temporary President by acclamation and unanimously. As proceedings went on it was thought best not to have any division or question as to a permanent Chairman and it was at the proper time ordered, also without objection, that I should act as permanent President.
But the Grant leaders were still confident. They felt sure that none of their original votes, numbering three hundred and more, would desert them, and that it would be impossible for the rest of the convention, divided among so many candidates, to agree, and that they would in the end get a majority.
I was myself exceedingly anxious on this subject. I also felt that if the followers of Grant could get any pretext for getting an advantage by any claim, however doubtful, that they would avail themselves of it, even at the risk of breaking up the convention in disorder, rather than be baffled in their object. So the time to me was one of great and distressing responsibility. The forces of Grant were led on the floor of the convention by Roscoe Conkling, who nominated him in a speech of great power and eloquence. The forces of Blaine were led, as they had been in 1876, very skilfuly by Senators Hale and Frye. Garfield was the leader of the supporters of Mr. Sherman. One of the greatest oratoric triumphs I ever witnessed was obtained by Garfield. There had been a storm of applause, lasting, I think, twenty-five minutes, at the close of Conkling's nominating speech. It was said there were fifteen thousand persons in the galleries, which came down very near the level of the floor. The scene was of indescribable sublimity. The fate of the country, certainly the fate of a great political party, was at stake, and, more than that, the selection of the ruler of a nation of fifty millions of people--a question which in other countries could not have been determined, under like circ.u.mstances, without bloodshed or civil war. I do not think I shall be charged with exaggeration when I speak of it in this way. I can only compare it in its grandeur and impressiveness to the mighty torrent of Niagara.
Perhaps I cannot give a satisfactory reason for so distinguis.h.i.+ng it from other like a.s.semblies that have gathered in this country.
But I have since seen a great number of persons from all parts of the country who were present as members or spectators, and they all speak of it in the same way. A vast portion of the persons present in the hall sympathized deeply with the supporters of Grant. Conkling's speech, as he stood almost in the centre of that great a.s.sembly on a platform just above the heads of the convention, was a masterpiece of splendid oratory. He began:
And when asked what State he hails from, Our sole reply shall be, He comes from Appomattox, And its famous apple-tree.
It was pretty difficult for Garfield to follow this speech in the tempest of applause which came after it. There was nothing stimulant or romantic in the plain wisdom of John Sherman. It was like reading a pa.s.sage from ”Poor Richard's Almanac” after one of the lofty chapters of the Psalms of David. Garfield began, quietly:
”I have witnessed the extraordinary scene of this convention with deep solicitude. Nothing touches my heart more quickly than a tribute of honor to a great and n.o.ble character. But as I sat in my seat and witnessed this demonstration, this a.s.semblage seemed to me a human ocean in a tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths are measured. When the storm has pa.s.sed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when the sunlight bathes its peaceful surface, then the astronomer and surveyor take the level from which they measure all terrestrial heights and depths.
”Gentlemen of the Convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people. When your enthusiasm has pa.s.sed, when the emotions of the hour have subsided, we shall find below this storm and pa.s.sion that calm level of public opinion from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and by which their final action will be determined.
”Not here, in this brilliant circle where fifteen thousand men and women are gathered, is the destiny of the Republic to be decreed for the next four years--not here, where I see the enthusiastic faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates, waiting to cast their lot into the urn and determine the choice of the Republic; but by four millions of Republican firesides, where the thoughtful voters, with wives and children about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of home and country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future, and reverence for the great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in days gone by, burning in their hearts--_there_ G.o.d prepares the verdict which will determine the wisdom of our work to-night. Not in Chicago, in the heat of June, but at the ballot-boxes of the Republic, in the quiet of November, after the silence of deliberate judgment, will this question be settled.”
Conkling, while exciting the admiration of all men for his dexterity and ability, lost ground at every step. He made a foolish attempt to compel the pa.s.sage of a resolution depriving of their rights to vote delegates who refused to pledge themselves to support the choice of the convention whoever it might be.
His speech nominating Grant contained a sneer at Blaine. So, while he held his forces together to the last, he made it almost impossible for any man who differed from him in the beginning to come to him at the end. On the contrary everything that Garfield said was marked by good nature and good sense.
I said on the first day of the convention that in my opinion if the delegates could be shut up by themselves and not permitted to leave the room until they agreed, the man on whom they would agree would be General Garfield. This desire became more and more apparent as the convention went on. At last, on the thirty-sixth ballot, and the sixth day of the convention, the delegates who had previously voted for other candidates than Grant, began to wheel into line for Garfield. Garfield had one vote from the State of Pennsylvania in previous ballots.
But on the thirty-fourth ballot Wisconsin, the last State to vote in alphabetical order, had given him her sixteen votes, and on the thirty-sixth ballot she was joined by the delegates who had voted for other candidates than Grant. Grant held together his forces till the last, receiving three hundred and thirteen votes on the thirty-fifth ballot, and three hundred and six on the thirty-sixth. It was a sublime moment, which it was hoped would determine the destiny of the Republic for many years, a hope which was cruelly disappointed by Garfield's untimely death. It was, as might be well believed, a moment of sublime satisfaction to me. Garfield had been my friend for many years. I had sat close to him in the House of Representatives for three terms of Congressional service. He had been my guest at my house in Worcester; and I had been his colleague on the Electoral Commission in 1876. He had been educated at a Ma.s.sachusetts college. He was of old Middles.e.x County stock. We were in thorough accord in our love for New England, our firm faith in her hereditary principles, and our pride in her n.o.ble history.
Garfield has been charged, in accepting the nomination for the Presidency, with having been untrue to the interests of John Sherman, who was the candidate of Ohio, and whom Garfield had supported faithfully through every ballot. The charge is absolutely unjust. Mr. Sherman's nomination was seen by everybody to have been absolutely impossible long before the final result. I was in constant consultation with leaders of the different delegations who were trying to unite their forces. There never was any considerable number of those persons who thought the nomination of Mr. Sherman practicable, notwithstanding the high personal respect in which they held him. At the close of the thirty-fourth ballot, when Garfield received seventeen votes, he rose, and the following incident took place:
Mr. Garfield, of Ohio: ”Mr. President, ----”
The President: ”For what purpose does the gentleman rise?”
Mr. Garfield: ”I rise to a question of order.”
The President: ”The gentleman from Ohio rises to a question of order.”
Mr. Garfield: ”I challenge the correctness of the announcement. The announcement contains votes for me.
No 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.”
The President: ”The gentleman from Ohio is not stating a question of order. He will resume his seat. No person having received a majority of the votes cast, another ballot will be taken. The Clerk will call the roll.”
This verbatim report is absolutely correct, except that where there is a period at the end of Mr. Garfield's last sentence there should be a dash, indicating that the sentence was not finished. I recollect the incident perfectly. I interrupted him in the middle of his sentence. I was terribly afraid that he would say something that would make his nomination impossible, or his acceptance impossible, if it were made. I do not believe it ever happened before that anybody who attempted to decline the Presidency of the United States was to be prevented by a point of order, or that such a thing will ever happen again.
During the thirtieth ballot a vote was cast by a delegate from the Territory of Wyoming for General Philip H. Sheridan.
General Sheridan, who was upon the platform as a spectator, came forward instantly, and said: ”I am very much obliged to the delegate from Wyoming for mentioning my name in this convention, but there is no way in which I could accept a nomination from this convention, if it were possible, unless I should be permitted to turn it over to my best friend.”
The President said: ”The Chair presumed the unanimous consent of the convention to permit the ill.u.s.trious soldier who has spoken to interrupt its order for its purpose. But it will be a privilege accorded to no other person whatever.” The General's prompt suppression of this attempt to make him a candidate was done in a direct and blunt soldierly fas.h.i.+on.
I did not think it best to apply to him the strictness of parliamentary law; and in that I was sure of the approval of the convention. But the precedent of permitting such a body to be addressed under any circ.u.mstances by a person not a member would be a dangerous one, if repeated. Perhaps I may with propriety add one thing of a personal nature. It has been sometimes charged that the delegates from Ma.s.sachusetts were without great influence in shaping the result of this convention. They moved, and carried, against a formidable opposition, the civil service plank, which embodied the doctrine of civil service reform as among the doctrines of the Republican Party. Of whatever value may be attributed to the humble services of the President of the Convention, they are ent.i.tled to the credit. They had, I think, more to do than any other delegation with effecting the union upon Garfield. Of course the wishes of Mr. Blaine had very great influence indeed.
I think he preferred Garfield to any other person except Robert Lincoln, of Illinois, of whom he spoke to me as a person from whom it would be impossible to keep the votes of the colored delegates from the South, and who would be, by reason of the respect felt for his father's memory, highly acceptable through the country. But Mr. Lincoln, under the circ.u.mstances, could not have got the support of his own State, and without it it seemed unwise to attempt a union upon him.
But to continue with what is personal to myself and the delegation from Ma.s.sachusetts. When I got back to the Capitol, as I went into the cloak-room of the Senate to leave my hat, Don Cameron sat there surrounded by a group of interested listeners.
He was relating to them the story of the great contest. As I approached the group he looked up and said: