“Just remember when Republicans and Democrats alike of Ohio fairly went crazy over the financial heresy, this man stood as with his feet on a rock, demanding honesty in government.  About six years ago I sat by the side of an Ohio Representative, who had an elaborately prepared table, showing how the West was being cheated; that Ohio had not as many bank bills to the square mile as the East, and that the Southwest was even worse off than Ohio.

“In regard to the great questions of human rights he has stood inflexible.  The successor of Joshua R. Giddings, he is the man on whom his mantle may be said to have descended.  Still he is no blind partisan.  The best arguments in favor of civil service reform are found in the speeches of Gen. Garfield.  He is liberal and generous in the treatment of the South, one of the foremost advocates of educational institutions in the South at the national expense.  Do you wish for that highest type—­the volunteer citizen soldier?  Here is a man who enlisted at the beginning of the war; from a subordinate officer he became a major-general, trusted by those best of commanders, Thomas and Rosecranz, always in the thickest of the fight, the commander of dangerous and always successful expeditions, and returning home crowned with the laurels of victory.  Do you wish for an honored career, which in itself is a vindication of the system of the American Republic?  Without the attributes of rank or wealth, he has risen from the humblest to the loftiest position.”

When the nominee of the convention had leisure to reflect upon his new position, and then cast his eye back along his past life, beginning with his rustic home in the Ohio wilderness, and traced step by step his progress from canal-boy to Presidential candidate, it must have seemed to him almost a dream.  It was indeed a wonderful illustration of what we claim for our Republican institutions, the absolute right of the poorest and humblest, provided he has the requisite talent and industry to aspire to the chief place and the supreme power.  “It was the most perfect instance of the resistless strength of a man developed by all the best and purest impulses, forces, and influences of American institutions into becoming their most thorough and ablest embodiment in organic and personal activity, aspiration, and character.”

The response to the nomination throughout the country was most hearty.  It was felt that the poor Ohio canal-boy had fitted himself, after an arduous struggle with poverty, for the high post to which he was likely to be called.  The N.Y.  Tribune, whose first choice had been the brilliant son of Maine, James G. Blaine, welcomed the result of the convention thus: 

“From one end of the nation to the other, from distant Oregon to Texas, from Maine to Arizona, lightning has informed the country of the nomination yesterday of James A. Garfield, as the Republican candidate for the Presidency.