"This coming fight is our Thermopylæ. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If our Spartan hosts are united, we can withstand all the Persians that the Xerxes of Democracy can bring against us. Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars in their courses fight for us in the future. The census taken this year will bring reinforcements and continued power. But in order to win this victory now, we want the vote of every Republican, of every Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican in America, of every Blaine man and anti-Blaine man. The vote of every follower of every candidate is needed to make our success certain; therefore, I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall do.
"We want a man whose life and opinions embody all the achievements of which I have spoken. We want a man who, standing on a mountain height, sees all the achievements of our past history, and carries in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds, and who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no spirit of unkindness towards those we lately met in battle. The Republican party offers to our brethren of the South the olive-branch of peace, and wishes them to return to brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be admitted forever and forevermore, that in the war for the Union, we were right and they were wrong. On that supreme condition we meet them as brothers, and on no other. We ask them to share with us the blessings and honors of this great republic.
"Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to present a name for your consideration—the name of a man who was the comrade and associate and friend of nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon us from these walls to-night; a man who began his career of public service twenty-five years ago; whose first duty was courageously done in the days of peril on the plains of Kansas, when the first red drops of that bloody shower began to fall which finally swelled into the deluge of war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and, returning to his duty in the National Legislature, through all subsequent time his pathway has been marked by labors performed in every department of legislation.
"You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of national statutes. Not one great beneficent measure has been placed in our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these men to formulate the laws that raised our great armies and carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought back the unity and calm of the States. His hand was in all that great legislation that created the war currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed the promises of the government and made the currency equal to gold. And when at last called from the halls of legislation into a high executive office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character which has carried us through a stormy period of three years. With one-half the public press crying 'Crucify him,' and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success, in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned him.
"The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business interests of the country he has guarded and preserved, while executing the law of resumption and effecting its object without a jar and against the false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the Democracy of this continent. He has shown himself able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of 'that fierce light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as a better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio."
Of this powerful speech, that was constantly interrupted by storms of applause, Whitelaw Reid said,—
"It was admirably adapted to make votes for his candidate, if speeches ever made votes. It was courteous, conciliatory, and prudent."
The editor of the Chicago Journal wrote as follows:—
"The supreme orator of the evening was General Garfield. He is a man of superb power and noble character.... He indulged in no fling at others. It was a model speech in temper and tone. The impression made was powerful and altogether wholesome. Many felt that if Ohio had offered Garfield instead of Sherman, she would have been more likely to win."