Destiny of the Republic - By Candice Millard Page 0,17
was called to order at 7:15 p.m. with the sharp rap of a gavel, the head of which was fashioned from the doorsill of Abraham Lincoln’s Illinois home and the handle made of cane from George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. Soon after, James Joy, a little known delegate from Michigan, walked reluctantly to the podium to give Blaine’s nominating speech. Blaine’s heart must have sunk, and Conkling’s sung, as Joy mournfully began: “I shall never cease to regret the circumstances under which the duty is imposed on me to make the nomination of a candidate in the Convention.” Complaining that he had been out of the country for months and, since arriving in Chicago, had been very busy on the convention floor, he vowed to bring Blaine before the convention in “as brief a manner as possible.” After an extremely modest, stumbling assessment of his candidate’s qualities, Joy quickly concluded by nominating for president “that eminent statesman, James S. Blaine,” prompting howls of frustration from Blaine’s supporters, who screamed that his middle initial was “G! You fool, G!”
After Joy had scurried back to his seat in profound relief and another man had nominated William Windom of Minnesota, Conkling at last had the floor. Hardly waiting for New York to be called, he sprang from his seat and strode down the aisle—shoulders back, chest out, face already arch with victory. Leaping onto one of the tables where reporters sat, astonished and delighted, Conkling “folded his arms across his swelling breast, laid his head back with a kingly frown upon his cleanly washed face, and settling his left foot with a slight stamp of his right,” said, in a slow, clear, supremely confident voice, “When asked whence comes our candidate we say from Appomattox.”
As the crowd roared its approval, Conkling went on, never deigning to qualify or explain, never hesitating to ridicule the competition or to use the most extravagant praise for his candidate. “New York is for Ulysses S. Grant. Never defeated—in peace or in war—his name is the most illustrious borne by living man.… Show me a better man. Name one, and I am answered.” When his attacks on the other candidates evoked shouts of outrage, he pulled a lemon from his pocket and, striking a regal pose, calmly sucked it until the hall had quieted enough for him to continue his blazing theatrical speech. When he had finished, Grant’s supporters abandoned themselves to sheer hysteria.
It was in the midst of this mania that Garfield was called upon to give his nominating speech for John Sherman. He rose slowly and walked to the stage, the hall still reverberating with screams of “Grant! Grant! Grant!” Earnest and modest, Garfield was Conkling’s opposite in every respect, and he had no intention, or desire, to compete with the flamboyant senator.
Those in the hall who knew Garfield, however, did not underestimate him for a minute, least of all Conkling. Earlier in the week, Conkling had tried to have expelled from the convention three delegates from West Virginia who had defied him. Garfield had spoken in their defense, forcing Conkling to withdraw his motion and winning widespread admiration for his courage and eloquence. After this very public defeat, Conkling had kept his silence, but handed Garfield a biting note: “New York requests that Ohio’s real candidate … come forward.”
Although Garfield had entered the hall that night with essentially nothing to say, Conkling’s nominating speech for Grant had inspired even him—if not in the way Conkling had intended. “Conkling’s speech,” he would write home that night, “gave me the idea of carrying the mind of the convention in a different direction.” Stepping onto the same reporters’ table that Conkling had just left, its white cloth still creased by Conkling’s expensive shoes, Garfield looked calmly into the sea of flushed faces before him and began to speak in a measured voice.
“I have witnessed the extraordinary scenes of this Convention with deep solicitude,” he said. “Nothing touches my heart more quickly than a tribute of honor to a great and noble character; but as I sat in my seat and witnessed the demonstration, this assemblage seemed to me a human ocean in tempest. I have seen the sea lashed into fury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man; but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured.”
As the crowd, which just moments before had been whipped