ore sensitive than I of calumny,
begged me not to be a candidate, as the office of President had
killed Lincoln and Garfield, and the effort to attain it had broken
down Webster, Clay and Blaine, and would do the same with me.
However, I remained at my duties in Washington as calmly awaiting
the action of the Chicago convention as any one of my associates
in the Senate. I read the daily reports of what was to be--"that
I was to be nominated on the first ballot," and "that I had no
chance whatever," and became alike indifferent as to the one or
the other result.

Shortly after the Ohio convention, I was invited to attend a banquet
of the Americus club at the Monongahela House, in Pittsburg, on
the 28th of April, at which Senator Harrison and Colonel Fred.
Grant were guests. The lobby of the hotel looked as if a political
convention was in session, many prominent men from Pennsylvania
and other states being present.

At the banquet I was called upon to respond to the toast "Grant;
He Was Great to the End." I insert a portion of my remarks:

"I saw General Grant when he arrived in Washington. He soon took
command of the Army of the Potomac. His plan of campaign was soon
formed. His objective point was Lee's army. Where Lee went he
went, and if Lee moved too slowly Grant flanked him. After the
fearful and destructive battles of the Wilderness, Washburne wanted
to carry some consoling message to Lincoln, and Grant wrote 'I
propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.' And
so he did, and all winter. He never loosed his tenacious grip of
Lee's army until Lee surrendered at Appomattox. If you ask me the
secret of his success I say tenacity, tenacity. He never was
discouraged. He knew how to hold on. And when his object was
attained, and not till then, he knew how to be generous.

"He carried the same traits into civil life. He was always the
same plain, simple, confiding, brave, tenacious and generous man
in war and peace, as when the leader of vast armies, President of
the United States, the guest of kings and emperors, and in his
final struggle with grim-visaged death. Gentlemen, you do right
to commemorate his birthday. It was his good fortune to be the
chief instrument of Divine Power to secure to you and your posterity
the blessing of a free, strong and united country. He was heroic
to the end, and you should be equally heroic in maintaining and
preserving the rights and privileges a