While Congress was in session the people of the United States were greatly interested in the choice of a candidate for President. Conventions were held, votes were taken and preferences expressed in every state. It was settled early in the year that a large majority of the delegates from Ohio would support me for President, and several weeks before the convention was held it was announced that I would receive the unanimous support of the delegates from Ohio. The Democratic party nominated Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman for President and Vice President.
The Republican state convention was held at Dayton, Ohio, on the 18th and 19th of April, and selected Foraker, Foster, McKinley and Butterworth as delegates at large to the national convention. Forty-two delegates were nominated by the twenty-one districts, and all of them were known to favor my nomination. The convention unanimously adopted this resolution:
"Seventh. The Republicans of Ohio recognize the merits, services and abilities of the statesmen who have been mentioned for the Republican nomination for the presidency, and, loyal to anyone who may be selected, present John Sherman to the country as eminently qualified and fitted for the duties of that exalted office, and the delegates to the Republican national convention this day selected are directed to use all honorable means to secure his nomination as President of the United States."
The speeches made at the convention by the delegates at large, and by other members, expressed without qualification the hearty and unanimous support of my nomination. The condition upon which alone I would become a candidate for so exalted a position as President of the United States had been complied with, and I therefore felt that I might fairly aspire to the nomination. Mr. Blaine had declined it on account of his health, and no one was named who had a longer record of public service than I had.
The movement for my nomination was heartily indorsed by the people of Ohio and was kindly received in the different states. Many of the leading newspapers assumed that it was assured. Sketches of my life, full of errors, appeared. My old friend, Rev. S. A. Bronson, issued a new edition of his "Life of John Sherman." Comments favorable and unfavorable, some of them libelous, appeared in print. Mrs. Sherman, much more sensitive than I of calumny, begged me not to be a candidate, as the office of President had killed Lincoln and Garfield, and the effort to attain it had broken down Webster, Clay and Blaine, and would do the same with me. However, I remained at my duties in Washington as calmly awaiting the action of the Chicago convention as any one of my associates in the Senate. I read the daily reports of what was to be—"that I was to be nominated on the first ballot," and "that I had no chance whatever," and became alike indifferent as to the one or the other result.
Shortly after the Ohio convention, I was invited to attend a banquet of the Americus club at the Monongahela House, in Pittsburg, on the 28th of April, at which Senator Harrison and Colonel Fred. Grant were guests. The lobby of the hotel looked as if a political convention was in session, many prominent men from Pennsylvania and other states being present.
At the banquet I was called upon to respond to the toast "Grant;
He Was Great to the End." I insert a portion of my remarks:
"I saw General Grant when he arrived in Washington. He soon took command of the Army of the Potomac. His plan of campaign was soon formed. His objective point was Lee's army. Where Lee went he went, and if Lee moved too slowly Grant flanked him. After the fearful and destructive battles of the Wilderness, Washburne wanted to carry some consoling message to Lincoln, and Grant wrote 'I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.' And so he did, and all winter. He never loosed his tenacious grip of Lee's army until Lee surrendered at Appomattox. If you ask me the secret of his success I say tenacity, tenacity. He never was discouraged. He knew how to hold on. And when his object was attained, and not till then, he knew how to be generous.
"He carried the same traits into civil life. He was always the same plain, simple, confiding, brave, tenacious and generous man in war and peace, as when the leader of vast armies, President of the United States, the guest of kings and emperors, and in his final struggle with grim-visaged death. Gentlemen, you do right to commemorate his birthday. It was his good fortune to be the chief instrument of Divine Power to secure to you and your posterity the blessing of a free, strong and united country. He was heroic to the end, and you should be equally heroic in maintaining and preserving the rights and privileges and policy for which he contended.
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