emove from the hall General Butler or any other person
who should defy the authority of the Convention. This the
committee promised to do. This promise was in substance kept.
The gentleman who made it as the organ of the State Central
Committee had himself been for many years a sheriff of the
County of Worcester, and had been a General in the Civil
War, and was a man of large capacity for handling disorderly
assemblies. He came to me afterward and said that in a hall
like Mechanics Hall a well-disciplined force of not more than
fifty men would be better for the purpose of keeping order
than a more numerous one, and he had taken the liberty of
departing from our agreement to that extent. To this I assented.

When I went to the Hall that morning in taking leave of my
wife I told her that the chances were that I should come
home the most disgraced man in Massachusetts. If General
Butler succeeded in breaking up the Convention in disorder
the blame would be laid upon the presiding officer.

But we got through safely. General Butler had calculated
that his opponents, who were divided among several candidates,
could not agree upon any one. But such an agreement was effected
upon William B. Washburn. His plan then, I supposed, was
to find some excuse for breaking up the Convention under circumstances
which would enable him to claim to President Grant that he
represented the regular Republican organization and that his
opponents were the bolters. My duty on the other hand was
so to conduct the Convention that there should be no pretext
on his part for such a course. The Convention was in continuous
session from 11 o'clock in the forenoon until half-past one
next morning. There were several contests in which Butler
conducted the case on his own side. But his opponents held
together and nominated William B. Washburn. With the exception
of the National Convention of 1880, at which I also presided,
this was the most difficult duty in the way of presiding over
a deliberative assembly which ever fell upon any person in
this country so far as I know.

In the year 1873 General Butler made another attempt to get
the Republican nomination for Governor. A meeting was called
at Hamilton Hall, in Boston, of a few persons opposed to his
candidacy, which resulted in an address to the people recommending
the reelection of Mr. Washburn. I signed the address of which
I wrote a few sentences. Judge Hoar made a bright and cha