I then said to him: "General Logan, I want to assure you that hereafter you must not feel concerned about my vote being the same as yours. In other words, when I want to vote one way and you want to vote another, I shall be perfectly satisfied, and shall have no feeling against you on account of it; I want you to feel the same way when conditions are reversed." He acquiesced in this proposal; but we never afterwards had occasion to differ on any important question before the Senate.
General Logan had an ambition to become President, and I believe he would have realized his ambition had he lived.
I placed him in nomination for President at the National Convention which met at Chicago in 1884. In The Washington National Tribune appears the following report:
"The next State that responded was Illinois, and as Senator Cullom mounted the platform to present the name of General John A. Logan, cheer after cheer followed him. When he was at last allowed to proceed, he began by referring to the nominations of Lincoln and Grant, both from Illinois, and both nominated at Chicago:
'In 1880, the party, assembled again at Chicago, achieved success by nominating Garfield; and now in 1884, in the same State, Illinois, which has never wavered in its adherence to the Republican party, presents, as the standard-bearer of that party, another son, one whose name would be recognized from one end of the land to the other as an able statesman, a brilliant soldier, and an honest man —John A. Logan.'
"The announcement of General Logan's name was received with a wild burst of applause, a great many persons rising to their feet, waving their hats and handkerchiefs, and the thousands of people in the gallery joining in the roars of applause. The cheers were renewed again and again. The speaker resumed:
'A native of the State which he represents in the Council of the Nation, reared among the youth of a section where every element of manhood is early brought into play, he is eminently a man of the people. The safety, the permanency, and the prosperity of the Nation depend upon the courage, the integrity, and the loyalty of its citizens. . . . Like Douglas, he believed that in time of war men must be either patriots or traitors, and he threw his mighty influence on the side of the Union; and Illinois made a record second to none in the history of States in the struggle to preserve the Union. . . .
'During the long struggle of four years he commanded, under the authority of the Government, first a regiment, then a brigade, then a division, then an army corps, and finally an army. He remained in the service until the war closed, when at the head of his army, with the scars of battle upon him, he marched into the capital of the Nation, and with the brave men whom he had led on a hundred hard-fought fields was mustered out of the service under the very shadow of the Capitol building which he had left four years before as a member of Congress to go and fight the battles of his country.
'When the war was over and peace victoriously restored, he was again invited by his fellow-citizens to take his place in the Councils of the Nation. In a service of twenty years in both Houses of Congress he has shown himself to be no less able and distinguished as a citizen than he was renowned as a soldier. Conservative in the advocacy of measures involving the public welfare, ready and eloquent in debate, fearless—yes, I repeat again, fearless—in defence of the rights of the weak against the oppression of the strong, he stands to-day closer to the great mass of the people of this country than almost any other man now engaging public attention.'"
At the conclusion of my speech there was a tremendous demonstration, and General Prentiss seconded the nomination. General Logan received sixty-three and one-half votes on the first ballot, and sixty-one votes on the second and third ballots.