hed interview,
that "Blaine is a splendid man, able and eminently fit for President.
If nominated he will find no one giving him a heartier support than
myself." We were connected by early ties of association and kinship,
and had been and were then warm friends. Blaine, when confident
of the nomination, said of me: "To no living man does the American
people owe a deeper debt of gratitude than to John Sherman, for
giving them resumption with all its blessings. As Secretary of
the Treasury he has been the success of the age. He is as eminently
fit for President as any man in America, and should he be nominated
all I am capable of doing will be done to aid in his election.
Should it be my fortune to become President, or should it fall to
the lot of any Republican, no one elected could afford to do less
than invite Secretary Sherman to remain where he is." The folly
of a few men made co-operation impracticable. I received opposition
in Ohio from his pretended friends, and he therefore lost the Ohio
delegation, which, but for this defection, would have made his
nomination sure had I failed to receive it.

The speech of General Garfield nominating me has always been regarded
as a specimen of brilliant eloquence rarely surpassed, the close
of which I insert:

"You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five years of
national statutes. Not one great beneficent law has been placed
on our statute books without his intelligent and powerful aid. He
aided to formulate the laws that raised our great armies, and
carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the workmanship
of those statutes that restored the unity of the states. His hand
was in all that great legislation that created the war currency,
and in a still greater work that redeemed the promise of the
government, and made our currency the equal of gold. And when at
last called from the halls of legislation into a high executive
office, he displayed that experience, intelligence, firmness, and
poise of character which has carried us through a stormy period.
The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the great business
interests of our country, he has preserved, while executing the
law of resumption and effecting its object, without a jar, and
against the false prophecies of one-half the press and all the
Democracy of this continent. He has shown himself able to meet
with calmness the great emergencies of the government for twenty-
five years. He h