It is a fact, and the one that makes certain the proposition that Sherman could not have been nominated, that the majority of the Blaine men from New York, turned loose by breaking the unit rule—there were nineteen of them—preferred Grant to Sherman. If the break by Blaine from himself had been attempted, for Sherman, Grant would have been nominated if one ballot had been decisive. But Blaine was able to transfer every vote cast for him to Garfield, with the exception of that of a colored delegate from Virginia; and this movement was managed so as to overthrow all who strove to stand against it. Grant was in the lead for thirty-four ballots, but on the thirty-fourth there were seventeen votes for Garfield. On the thirty-fifth ballot Garfield had three hundred and ninety-nine votes, twenty-one majority over all. Blaine by telegraph had outgeneralled Conkling, present and commanding in person.
The course of the proceedings of the convention from the first was a preparation for the final scenes, the putting of Garfield against Conkling and working up a rivalry between them having a marked effect; and this was not so much for Garfield as against Conkling. Garfield grieved to think Sherman would misunderstand him, and was apprehensive as to the feeling of the New York delegation. "How do your people feel about this?" Garfield asked a New Yorker, when he had returned to his hotel the nominee.
"Well, they feel badly and bitterly," was the reply.
"Yes," said Garfield, "I suppose they do. It is as Wellington said, 'next to the sadness of defeat, the saddest moment is that of victory.'" This remark was quite in Garfield's method and manner.
Mr. Sherman's failure was made inevitable in this, as in other conventions, by the strange absence, always observable in New York, of appreciation of the unparalleled services to the country of his public labors culminating in the resumption of specie payments. That is the real secret and chief fault of the convention.
Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio appeared at the headquarters of the New York delegation after the Garfield nomination, and Senator Conkling greeted him cordially. There Dennison said, so that the whole delegation heard, that he was the bearer of a message from the delegation of Ohio, that they would give a solid vote for any man New York would be pleased to name for Vice-President. "Even," said Senator Conkling promptly, in his finest cynical way, "if that man should be Chester A. Arthur?"
Dennison's answer was, after a moment, "Yes;" and Conkling put the question of supporting Arthur to a vote, making a motion that he was the choice of the delegation for the Vice-Presidency, and it was carried immediately. This was understood to be pretty hard on the Ohio people, including especially Sherman and Garfield. Of course, under the lead of New York and Ohio, the convention ratified the motion of Conkling, and the ticket was Garfield and Arthur. And so ample preparation was made for the bitterness of the coming time—for the troubled administration of Garfield and its tragic close.
GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION.
There have been limitations upon the candor of all persons who have undertaken to write the story of the tragedy of the administration of Garfield, and partisanism in personalities has had too much attention. Mr. Conkling seemed to be the storm centre, and it was difficult to deal with him and not to offend him. It is well remembered that in his speech placing Grant in nomination he quoted Miles O'Reilly: