to you at all, it will come as a call of patriotism.  It would, in such an event, injure your great fame as much to decline it as it would for you to seek it.  Your historic record, full as it is, would be rendered still more glorious by such an administration as you would be able to give the country.  Do not say a word in advance of the convention, no matter who may ask you.  You are with your friends, who will jealously guard your honor.

    Do not answer this.

    JAMES G. BLAINE.

GENERAL SHERMAN TO MR. BLAINE.

    ST. LOUIS, May 28, 1884.

    HON.  J.G.  BLAINE.

MY DEAR FRIEND:—­I have received your letter of the 25th; shall construe it as absolutely confidential, not intimating even to any member of my family that I have heard from you; and though you may not expect an answer, I hope you will not construe one as unwarranted.  I have had a great many letters from all points of the compass to a similar effect, one or two of which I have answered frankly; but the great mass are unanswered.  I ought not to subject myself to the cheap ridicule of declining what is not offered; but it is only fair to the many really able men who rightfully aspire to the high honor of being President of the United States to let them know that I am not, and must not be construed as, a rival.  In every man’s life there occurs an epoch when he must choose his own career, and when he may not throw the responsibility, or tamely place his destiny in the hands of friends.  Mine occurred in Louisiana when, in 1861, alone in the midst of a people blinded by supposed wrongs, I resolved to stand by the Union as long as a fragment of it survived to which to cling.  Since then, through faction, tempest, war, and peace, my career has been all my family and friends could ask.  We are now in a good home of our choice, with reasonable provision for old age, surrounded by kind and admiring friends, in a community where Catholicism is held in respect and veneration, and where my children will naturally grow up in contact with an industrious and frugal people.  You have known and appreciated Mrs. Sherman from childhood, have also known each and all the members of my family, and can understand, without an explanation from me, how their thoughts and feelings should and ought to influence my action; but I will not even throw off on them the responsibility.  I will not, in any event, entertain or accept a nomination as a candidate for President by the Chicago Republican convention, or any other convention, for reasons personal to myself.  I claim that the Civil War, in which I simply did a man’s fair share of work, so perfectly accomplished peace, that military men have an absolute right to rest, and to demand that the men who have been schooled in the arts and practice of peace shall now do their work equally well.  Any senator can step from his chair at the Capitol into the White House, and