He suffered under the petty charge that he had been influenced by a scrap of stock whose value might be affected by Congressional action; and those who knew him well were aware that his innocence of knowledge to do what he was charged with doing, was absurd and itself proof that he was sound. He was, by virtue of superior capacity, at the head of the Ohio delegation to the Republican National Convention of 1880, and was charged with the management of the candidacy of John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, for the Presidency—the most competent man in the country for the office.
It had been thought for a time that the combination of important men for a third term of General Grant would succeed, as the glory of the General was very great and those who wanted him for President again were able and resolute. Blaine had hesitated for a moment whether to take the field; but learning that Sherman would be in the race whether there was or was not any other man a candidate in opposition to Grant, he made the fight, and he and Sherman were the representative leaders against the third term.
Their feeling was that they were not making war upon General Grant, but upon those who sought to use his fame for their own purpose, and they meant particularly Senator Conkling. General Grant, at Galena, wrote a letter to Senator Cameron, and gave it to John Russell Young, who handed it to Mr. Cameron, and it disappeared. This letter was a frank and serious statement that he desired not to be considered a candidate, and no doubt his preference was the nomination of Mr. Conkling.
The interest of the great convention early centred in the two tall men on the floor, the undoubted champions of the contending forces, Conkling and Garfield; and the latter got the first decided advantage in breaking the third term line when Conkling demanded that the majority of the delegation of a State should cast the entire vote. This was the famous unit rule, the defeat of which was the first event of the convention. Garfield and Conkling were foremost in the fray because they were the most masterful men of the vast assembly—nearly twenty thousand people under the roof.
The advocates of the Old Commander for a third term were in heavy force, and knew exactly what they wanted; and whenever the convention met, as Senator Conkling usually walked in late, he had a tumultuous reception. The opposition saw it was necessary to counteract this personal demonstration, and managed to hold Garfield back so that he should be later than Conkling, and then they gave him salutations of unheard-of exuberance far resounding; and this was the beginning of the end. Garfield, because he was in person, position, and transcending talent a leader, was transformed into a colossus before the eyes of the convention, and was an appeal to the imagination. When the nominating addresses were made, none was heard by the whole multitude but those by Conkling and Garfield. They stood on tables of reporters, and their voices rang clear, through their splendid speeches, carrying every word to the remotest corners; and the rivalry between the two men became emphasized. Each had the sense to admire the effort of the other, Conkling saying to the delegate by his side: "It is bright in Garfield to speak from that place," and it was a good deal for him to say. More and more Garfield loomed as the man who stood against Grant.
There had been a good many persons meantime saying that neither Blaine nor Sherman could beat Grant, and that Garfield was the man to do it. All who are familiar with our political methods are aware of the frantic desire of the average office-seeker, or practical politician, no matter what he wants, to find out early all the possibilities of the next Presidency; and it is esteemed a superb achievement to be among the first to pick the man. The number of far-sighted citizens on the subject of the eligibility of Garfield, as the convention progressed, grew large. Governor Foster of Ohio did not conceal his impression that the nomination of Garfield was certain. In his opinion Sherman was not in the race, and perhaps his judgment to that effect assisted the formation of the current that finally flooded the convention. One man, a delegate from Pennsylvania, voted for Garfield on every ballot, and kept him before the people. I had telegrams from correspondents of the Cincinnati "Commercial," at Chicago, several days before the nomination, evidently reflecting Governor Foster's opinions, and frequently repeated, until the event justified them, saying Garfield would be the nominee. I was that time slow to understand the situation, and protested, against putting the "nonsense" on the wires, in telegrams that after the event were held to signify lack of sagacity about Garfield.
The first man who held decidedly Garfield would be nominated was Mr. Starin of New York, who travelled with Senator Conkling in a special car from the national capital to the convention, and said on the way the nomination of Grant was not to be, and that Blaine and Sherman could not carry off the prize, and that therefore Garfield was to be the man. He made this point to the Hon. Thomas L. James, the Postmaster-General in Garfield's cabinet, between Harrisburg and Chicago. Mr. Blaine regarded beating Grant at Chicago as no loss to the General and no reflection on him, but rather as the best thing for him; and that the true policy and purpose was to beat Conkling, who committed the error in strategy, however gallant the sentiment that inspired him, of committing himself irretrievably to Grant—and though the contested votes were all against him, he was unchangeable. "No angle-worm nomination will take place to-day"—meaning nothing feeble—was Mr. Conkling's oracular remark the morning of the day when the Presidential destiny of the occasion was determined.
The drift toward Garfield was in so many ways announced before the decisive hour that he could not be insensible of its existence, and he was greatly disturbed. He said he would "rather be shot with musketry than nominated" and have Sherman think he had been unfaithful to his obligations as leader of the forces for him. That Senator Sherman was offended is well known; but so far as he felt that Garfield had been to blame, it was due to the gossip, widely disseminated, that Garfield was personally concerned in working his own "boom." All that was well threshed out long ago, and there is nothing tangible in it to-day. The fact is, Garfield could not have worked a personal scheme. He must have been defeated if he had tried it. A movement on his part of that kind would have been fatal. On the other hand, if he had got up to decline to be a candidate, it would have been easy to say that he was making a nominating speech for himself. It was not particularly difficult to call Garfield a "traitor," and the temptation to do it was because he was so sensitive regarding that imputation in politics—whatever hurts goes. He had no idea of concealing anything, and told such queer stories as this:
The morning of his nomination—the fact that this was from Garfield himself is certain—one of his relatives from Michigan saw him and said: "Jim, you are going to be nominated to-day. I had a dream about you last night, and thought I was in the hall and there was something happening, I could not tell what, when suddenly on every side the standards of the States [names of the States on staffs locating the delegations] were pulled from their places, and men ran to where you were sitting, and waved them over your head." Garfield stated that this was certainly told him on the way to his breakfast; and after the nomination the dreamer reappeared and said: "What did I tell you, Jim? Why, the very thing I saw in my dream last night, I saw in the convention to-day."
The inside truth about the nomination was freely given by Mr. Blaine, who, as the convention progressed, was studying the proceedings with the surprisingly clear vision he possessed for the estimation of passing events. He soon made up his mind that his nomination could not happen, and that Sherman also was impossible. They could not unite forces without losses. Evidently there was a crisis at hand. There is something in a convention that always tells the competent observer, near or far, that decisive action is about to be taken. The evidence appears of an intolerant impatience. Mr. Conkling was relying upon the absolute solidity of his three hundred and five. Mr. Blaine was a wiser man about the force of a tempest in a convention, and would have preferred Sherman to Conkling. But Conkling was quite as bitter toward Sherman as regarding Blaine, even more so in his invective; and this grew out of the custom-house difficulty that ultimately so deeply affected General Arthur's fortunes. There had to be a break somewhere—to Grant from Sherman and Blaine, or from him to them, or a rush to Conkling, or to Garfield, whose conspicuity had constantly suggested it; and Blaine resolved that the chance to rout the third-termers was to sweep the convention by going for Garfield, and overwhelming him with the rest, thus winning a double victory over Conkling.